Pupcakes

by Annie England Noblin

  “He’s worked almost twenty-four hours straight,” Myriah replied. “I can’t even stay up past midnight to study for a bio exam.”

  “You’re in college?” Brydie asked. She wondered if Myriah had been at Nathan’s house the entire time. Did she sleep there sometimes?

  Myriah nodded. “Premed. My dad is a cardiologist at Baptist.”

  “Oh.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a baker,” Brydie replied. It was an automatic response, and not one that usually made her feel nervous. But right now, sitting in a doctor’s house with a beautiful and young premed student, she wished she had something more impressive to say.

  “That’s awesome,” Myriah said. “Do you have a shop or something?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  The two women sat there in silence for a minute, and Brydie felt bad for not explaining to Myriah where she worked. Maybe she could have worked it into the conversation that she had owned her own shop, but at the moment, explaining any of it made her feel silly. She doubted Myriah cared, and she was starting to think maybe she should just go ahead and call it a night.

  “Hey, wait!” Myriah said, standing up and jogging toward the kitchen, motioning for Brydie to follow her. “Did you make these treats that I give Sasha? She loves them.”

  “I did,” Brydie said, grinning as Myriah pulled the bag from the cabinet. “How did you know?”

  “I just now remembered that Nathan mentioned it. He said to remind him to ask you for more. Sasha is about out,” Myriah replied. “He told me that like a week ago. I can be kind of a ditz sometimes.”

  Brydie grinned. “That much we have in common,” she said.

  “My dad says I shouldn’t use that word if I’m going to be a doctor,” Myriah continued. “He says it’ll make patients lose faith.” She laughed nervously. “But I can’t think of a more perfect word to describe me!”

  Brydie was about to respond when she heard the front door open and Sasha’s loud, joyful bark echoing down the hallway.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Nathan said, rounding the corner and into the kitchen. He stopped short when he saw Brydie. “Wow, you look fantastic.” His eyes roamed playfully over her body. “Now I feel even worse for keeping you waiting.”

  “Thanks,” Brydie replied, feeling herself blush. She hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as her dress.

  Myriah looked from Nathan to Brydie and back again, a small smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “Let me just get Sasha out of here,” she said, shaking the bag of treats at the dog. “Come on, you canine tornado. You want a treat?”

  Brydie watched Nathan set his coat down on the countertop, his shoulder slouching slightly. There were dark circles under his eyes and at least two days of stubble jutting across his jawline. “You look exhausted,” she said, finally. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight? We can reschedule if you’re too tired.”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “No!” Brydie said. “But Myriah said that you’ve been at work for hours and hours. I just don’t want you to feel obligated, that’s all.”

  “Well, I won’t lie, I’d prefer to go on up to the bedroom and take you with me,” Nathan said. He reached out and put one hand on her waist. “But I’ve already switched our reservation around, and Neil will kill me if I take up a table on the busiest night of the week and don’t use it.”

  Brydie cleared her throat. The bedroom option sounded better to her as well. “Okay,” she said.

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  MEMPHIS AT NIGHT was glorious. In the eight months that Brydie had lived in Memphis, she’d never been downtown at night. Even in the fall, Beale Street was vibrant and buzzing with locals wandering around and popping into restaurants to eat dinner.

  Fish, the restaurant where Nathan had taken her, was no different. They breezed past the maître d’, who merely nodded at them and said, “He’s in the back, Dr. Reid.”

  Nathan led Brydie to the back part of the restaurant, all the way to a round booth where four people sat, cloaked in warm, yellow lighting. One of the men, slim and balding, stood up when he saw them coming.

  “Nate!” he howled, extending his arms to bring Nathan into a hug. “I thought you’d stood me up!”

  “Oh, come on. You know me better than that,” Nathan replied. “I couldn’t come straight from the hospital. I figured the whole restaurant would appreciate it if I showered.”

  “As much as I’d like to hear about that shower,” the man said, turning his attention to Brydie, “I’m going to need you to tell me who this dish is first.”

  “Neil, this is Brydie, my neighbor from down the street . . . Brydie, this is Neil. He owns this restaurant.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Brydie said, extending her hand, trying not to be bothered by Nathan introducing her as his neighbor. She guessed it was true, at least.

  “Oh, honey,” Neil replied. “I’m a hugger. Get in here!”

  Brydie’s face was suddenly planted firmly into Neil’s starched, white collar. “Frumpumph,” she said.

  Neil took her by the hand and led her closer to the booth. “Everyone, this is Brydie. Nathan’s date.”

  “Hi,” Brydie said to the two men and one woman sitting at the booth.

  “Brydie, this is Warren, my husband.” Neil nodded toward one of the men. “He’s a lawyer, but don’t hold that against him. And beside him is Jasper Floyd and his wife, Adelaide.”

  “Call me Addie,” the blond woman said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  The man beside Addie named Jasper smiled at Brydie. “Hello,” he said. “Dr. Reid, did you save any lives today?”

  “Probably not as many as you ruined,” Nathan replied.

  “I’m not in the habit of setting criminals free anymore,” Jasper replied. “I mostly just argue with cattle now.”

  “Jasper used to be a lawyer here in Memphis,” Neil explained to Brydie. “But then he left us all for the life of a farmer. Have you ever heard anything more quaint?”

  “I’m from Jonesboro,” Brydie said. “Lots of quaint farms up that way.”

  “I know it well,” Jasper replied. “I have a buddy who went to Arkansas State.”

  “It’s where both of my parents went.”

  “I like to go to Hardy for the antiques,” Addie cut in. “I’ve found some spectacular deals up that way. It’s just a little past Jonesboro, isn’t it?”

  Brydie nodded. “Just about an hour.”

  “Addie has her own shop in Eunice,” Neil said. “It’s full of repurposed furniture and some of the sweetest little knickknacks.”

  “I’ve never been to Eunice,” Brydie admitted.

  “Come on down anytime,” Jasper said. “Make that doctor of yours take a break once in a while.”

  “What this doctor needs,” Nathan said, rubbing his stomach, “is something to eat. I can’t remember the last time I had an actual meal.”

  “Let me get you all a table,” Neil said. “I saved you one with a view.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” Addie called over her shoulder as Brydie was ushered off.

  Neil led them to a table near the front, next to a window with a view of the street. “I’ll get a server right over,” he said. “Come and find me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks,” Nathan said, sitting down with a grateful sigh. “Appreciate it, man.”

  “Thanks,” Brydie echoed.

  Once Neil had gone and they were comfortable with their menus in front of them, Brydie stole a glance at Nathan. He still looked worn out, but less so than when he’d gotten home earlier. She couldn’t help but feel a little insecure at how quickly he’d changed the subject when Jasper invited them to Eunice and called Nathan her doctor.

  She tried not to let it bother her. It was silly, she knew, but that didn’t make her feel any better. “Is everything here good?” she asked.

  Nathan looked over his menu at her. “Everything I�
�ve tried has been good, but catfish is their specialty.”

  Brydie wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t a fan of catfish. “I was thinking about the chicken Parmesan and a nice glass of wine.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Nathan replied. He closed his menu and handed it to a waiter who seemed to appear out of thin air. “I think I’ll have the same thing, and could we get a bottle of the Viognier?”

  “Your friends were nice,” Brydie said once the waiter had gone.

  “They’re a good group of people,” Nathan agreed. “I didn’t know Jasper and Addie were in town. You’d really like them both if you got to know them. Jasper and Warren helped my family settle my grandparents’ estate, and Jasper and Addie have about five dogs. I swear their farm doubles as an animal sanctuary.”

  “I should have mentioned my dog treats to them,” Brydie replied.

  “You should have.” Nathan grinned at her for the first time since they got to the restaurant. “Speaking of which, I need to order some more. We’re almost out.”

  “Myriah told me,” Brydie replied. “I made some extra when I baked for MaryAnn and Fred. I will bring some over.”

  “I’ll pay you,” Nathan said.

  “Of course you won’t,” Brydie scoffed. “Consider it compensation for setting me up with MaryAnn and Fred.”

  “I’ve never owned a pet before,” Brydie said. “I have to admit that I didn’t realize so many people treated their dogs like their children.”

  “MaryAnn has three kids. I’m pretty sure she loves Thor more than all of them put together.”

  “I’m sure she’s made her kids well aware of that fact.”

  “In a way, I understand it,” Nathan replied. “We had dogs when I was growing up, but I didn’t really know what it meant to take care of another living being until I got Sasha. I’ve never thrown her a birthday party, but I have to admit that she has her own side of the bed.”

  “I wasn’t thrilled about dog-sitting when I first met Teddy,” Brydie said. “I thought he was kind of ugly and smelled bad. But I have to admit that I’ve grown pretty attached to him.”

  “Mrs. Neumann loves him, too,” Nathan replied. “I know she worried about what was going to happen to him when she moved to the nursing home. You’ve been a savior for her.”

  Brydie felt a twinge of guilt at what Nathan said. She knew she hadn’t taken the responsibility of caring for him very seriously at first, and she certainly hadn’t accepted the responsibility to help Pauline. She’d accepted because she was broke and semi-homeless. “I hope I can take care of him even half as well as she did.”

  “I think you’re doing a great job,” Nathan said, giving her the smile that made her heart skip a beat. “At the end of the day, I really think all dogs want from us is for us to love them. Well, that and for us to come home after work. I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about leaving Sasha with Myriah so much. But they love each other, so I guess it works out.”

  “She was pretty excited to see you tonight,” Brydie replied.

  “She’s always excited,” Nathan said with a laugh. “But after a long day, especially a day like I had today, it’s nice to come home to pure joy on the face of my dog.”

  “I know what you mean,” Brydie replied. “Teddy is a little too old and too fat to get very excited, but he always greets me at the door. And he follows me everywhere for the first couple of hours I’m home after work.”

  “Sasha does, too,” Nathan said. “And she always seems to know when I’ve had a bad day.”

  “Was today one of those days?”

  Nathan looked down at the table. He didn’t look up for a few seconds, until the waiter whisked in with the wine and poured them each a glass, obviously grateful for the interruption to their conversation. “Today was one of those days,” he said finally, giving her a half smile. “Being an ER doctor can be difficult sometimes.”

  “I’m sure being a doctor at any time is difficult,” Brydie replied. “I can’t imagine having people’s lives in my hands every day.”

  “Sometimes I think I’ll get out and start my own practice,” Nathan said. “But I don’t know how to function anymore without the stress of the ER.”

  Brydie didn’t really know how to relate to the stress of the job that Nathan had. There were rarely life-threatening moments in baking. Sure, sometimes mothers got angry when a birthday cake for a little kid was a minute late to the party. And sometimes brides and grooms broke up before the wedding, leaving you with tiers upon tiers of wedding cake. But those were hardly relatable to trying and failing to save a person’s life. She did, however, know about owning her own business. “Working for myself was stressful, but probably not as stressful as it is now, where I have to worry about several bosses and the customer,” she said.

  “Do you miss it?”

  Brydie shrugged. “Some days. I miss having creative control, but I’ve met some really great people at ShopCo.”

  “It helps when you like the people you work with,” Nathan said.

  “I invited them to Thanksgiving dinner,” Brydie replied. “My boss is kind of prickly, but I think he was secretly pleased to have been invited somewhere.”

  “I usually spend the day at the ER,” Nathan said.

  “Are you working this year?”

  Nathan shook his head. “I’m on call, but I don’t have to go there. This year, I’m not the new guy anymore.”

  Brydie bit at the corner of her lip. Should she invite him to come over? Would he think that was weird? Would he feel obligated but not really want to come? “You know,” she said carefully, “I’ve invited the three people I work with and my best friend Elliott and her family to Thanksgiving dinner. Would you like to come?”

  “You wouldn’t think I’m a party crasher?” Nathan asked.

  “Of course not,” Brydie replied. “You can’t crash a party you’re invited to.”

  “I’d love to come,” he said. “What should I bring?”

  “Just yourself,” Brydie said. “And Sasha if you want.”

  Nathan picked up his fork when the chicken parm was put down in front of him and grinned at Brydie over the steam. “I have to tell you,” he said. “I was so tired when I got home tonight. I thought I might cancel once I got there, and then I saw you in that dress, and I knew I couldn’t. After the day I’ve had, all I wanted to do was go to sleep, but I’m so glad we came out tonight. You’ve made this day so much better than I can tell you.”

  “I would have been happy to reschedule,” Brydie replied. “But I’m glad we came out, too.”

  Nathan took a swig of his wine—a larger drink than usual—and said, “I didn’t want to come out tonight because before I came home, I had to tell a twelve-year-old girl that both of her parents were dead.”

  Brydie’s eyes snapped up from her plate. “You had to do what?”

  “There was a car accident on the Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge. Her parents’ car was rear-ended while they were at a dead stop, and the impact was so great, it slid their car underneath an eighteen-wheeler,” Nathan said. “They were on their way to pick her up from her aunt’s house in Southaven.”

  “How awful.”

  “It was worse than awful,” Nathan said, looking down at his empty plate. “It was pure carnage, and there was nothing I could do to save either of them by the time they got to the hospital.”

  “That’s not your fault,” Brydie said. She reached out across the table to take his hand as it drummed nervously on the tablecloth.

  “No,” Nathan replied. “But it had been such a long shift already. All I wanted to do was go home, and I didn’t have it in me to tell this little girl that her entire world had vanished, but I had to.”

  “I’m sure that you did the best you could.”

  “I didn’t, though,” Nathan said. “That’s the thing. That’s what I feel so shitty about. I hadn’t had any sleep. I was . . . I am exhausted. I wasn’t delicate with her like I should have been. I didn’t sit down a
nd hold her hand. I just . . . told her and then I walked away. I left with her crying on her aunt’s shoulder.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s going to live with this night for the rest of her life,” Nathan replied. “She’s going to remember my face and what I said forever, and I failed her.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Brydie said. “You can’t always say the perfect words. That little girl will remember that you tried to save her parents. That counts, too, you know.”

  Nathan squeezed her hand before he pulled away from her. “This is why I’m glad I didn’t go to sleep as soon as I got home,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  It wasn’t a sentiment that Brydie could explain, at least not yet, but it had been such a long time since she felt like she’d made anybody happy. In fact, lately she’d felt like a burden more than anything else. She’d been a burden on her mother, on Elliott, and sometimes, she even felt, on everyone. But tonight, in her red dress, sitting across from this handsome, curly-headed doctor, she felt like maybe she wasn’t a burden after all. Maybe, just maybe, she had more to give than all she’d already lost.

  CHAPTER 27

  THANKSGIVING WAS LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY, AND THE weather in Memphis was starting to look like it. There were gray clouds low in the sky, and the wind stung. For most people, it would have been a good incentive to stay inside, but Brydie loved it. Teddy, however, wasn’t excited at all about the weather. She had to carry him from the car into the nursing home.

  Brydie felt as anxious to see Pauline as Teddy did. She wasn’t sure what to expect after their last interaction. Pauline had hardly spoken to Brydie in the car after she told her to stay out of the basement, and the mood had been just as tense back inside the nursing home. Although the receptionist had long gone home, Dr. Sower made it a point to let Brydie know she wasn’t buying Nathan’s story at all. She made Brydie promise not to take Pauline anywhere from now on.

  She planned to honor both of those promises, although the promise about staying out of the basement was proving to be the more difficult of the two.

  Brydie and Teddy stood at the receptionist’s desk at the nursing home while the receptionist was talking on the phone. She’d been on the phone since Brydie announced that she was there to see Pauline.