by Radclyffe
“I always knew what I would be. I always knew where I would end up.” Pearce spoke quietly as she searched in a cabinet for a dish towel. “It never occurred to me that there was any other choice.”
Wynter turned with the ice cube tray between her fingers, trying not to freeze her hands. She held it out. “Are you happy with the way things turned out?”
Pearce settled the tray onto the palm of her uninjured hand, studying the orderly alignment of the rectangular cubes. “I don’t know. I’ve never stopped long enough to think about it.” She looked into Wynter’s eyes. “How about you?”
“I’m pretty happy with where things are right at this minute.” Wynter smiled. Standing in Pearce’s kitchen with the smell of cocoa in the air, she realized just exactly how much she meant that.
Chapter Fourteen
“Oh, God,” Wynter murmured, stretching her stocking feet toward the fireplace. “If I stay a minute longer, I’m not going to be able to get up and go home.”
Pearce turned her head lazily on the sofa, her heavy white mug of hot chocolate balanced on her knee. She had forgotten to drink it as they had talked about medical school and Wynter’s residency at Yale, sharing the many experiences they had in common. They had not mentioned Wynter’s ex-husband again, although Wynter spoke often and freely about Ronnie. Pearce found she could easily discount the shadow of a husband if she didn’t think about it too hard. She could sometimes even forget that Wynter was very likely to have another husband before very long. She was too beautiful and bright and dynamic to be without a partner. But those were thoughts for lonely nights when she stared into the fireplace and saw only dying embers, not the promise of light and warmth. Tonight, Wynter was beside her, and nothing had ever felt quite so right. “I’ll walk you home.”
“I believe I see a pattern forming here.” Wynter tipped her cup and drank the last of the bittersweet chocolate. “No. We already established that you shouldn’t be wandering around by yourself.”
“I’m fine now. The Valium has worn off, and”—she held up her hand—“this feels a lot better.”
“What are you going to do if you have to operate tomorrow?” Wynter tucked her feet up under her on the sofa and studied Pearce, who lounged a foot away on the opposite end, her head tipped back against the sofa, her back relaxed into the curve of the cushions, her legs splayed. So comfortable in her own body. So apparently unaware of how beautiful she was.
“I’m backup call. Hopefully it will be quiet. If not, I’ll get a glove on somehow and fake it with my good hand. I’d only need to scrub to second assist anyhow.”
“Pearce,” Wynter said with real worry. “It will kill you to scrub with those open wounds. Your hand will be a bloody mess before you’re done.”
“I’ll use one of the scrubless chemical disinfectants.” She grinned at Wynter’s groan. “Okay, so it’ll still sting like a mother, but I won’t tear anything open with a brush. I’ll survive. Besides, chances are I’ll get a few phone calls during the day and nothing else, so I won’t even need to go in. How ’bout you? What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“You know that you’re an expert at changing the subject?”
Pearce frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Wynter leaned toward her and rested her fingertips on Pearce’s knee. She tapped for emphasis as she spoke. “Whenever we talk about you, if it gets the least bit confrontational, you change the subject. Or if we’re sharing secrets, you manage to turn everything back on me. You know more about me than my mother at this point. And I don’t know anything about you.”
“Okay,” Pearce said with a hint of challenge in her voice. “Ask me something.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Wynter said in exasperation. “It’s not about twenty questions. It’s about…it’s about…” She stopped, uncertain what it was about. She’d never been bothered when her other friends had been overly private. She’d never wanted to know everything about one of them. What made them happy. What made them sad. What they dreamed about. She had no idea why it annoyed her that Pearce would not easily disclose those things to her. “Never mind.”
“You know things about me too,” Pearce said quietly. “Secret things.”
“Really? What?”
Pearce tapped the back of Wynter’s hand where it now rested on her thigh. “You know about my secret room. You know about the hot chocolate. You know about…” She searched her mind frantically and then looked into Wynter’s inquisitive eyes, knowing that she had told Wynter her story in fragments over dinner the night Wynter had arrived, in the abandoned residents’ lounge, in the operating room as they teased and bantered, and this evening, as they talked in desultory tones about growing up with the knowledge they would always be doctors, and nothing else. “You know that I am everything my family expected me to be…except a son.”
Wynter’s lips parted in stunned surprise. “You can’t mean that.”
“You’ve seen him with me. I’m the only heir.” She tried to put words to what she had always known but never wanted to face. From the time he had first taken her with him on rounds, she had understood that that place—those buildings, those people, that world—was her destiny. She would be what he expected, because that’s why she had been born. “I’m his legacy. That’s what he sees when he looks at me.”
“Are you doing what you want to do with your life?”
“I don’t know. I never had any reason to think about it.” Pearce rolled her shoulders and forced a smile. “It doesn’t matter now. It works for me.”
Wynter didn’t question that statement. It wasn’t her place to second-guess what made Pearce happy. “What are your plans? After you finish?”
Pearce watched the flames lick at the center of a thick log, destroying it from the heart out, weakening it until only a shell remained around a crumbling black core. “I’ll do a vascular or CT fellowship somewhere, then move into an academic position. I’ll earn my stripes, and eventually I’ll come back here. And I’ll take my father’s place.”
“Is that what he did?”
“No, he’s always been here. But there won’t be room for me here for a while. Things have changed enough that he won’t be able to push for me to succeed him unless I’ve got the credentials to support it. To do that, I’ll have to break ground elsewhere.”
“There aren’t very many female chairs of surgery,” Wynter said, stating what they both knew. It was still very rare for a woman to head the most powerful division in the hospital hierarchy, and the competition for the coveted position was fierce. Pearce would have to devote every waking moment for years before she might obtain the reluctant respect and support of her colleagues.
Pearce grinned, a hard, feral grin. “None of it’s a cakewalk, is it?”
“No,” Wynter admitted, thinking that there were easier paths to take. Paths that would allow Pearce some kind of life, some kind of happiness. “Is it what you want?”
“Sure.” Abruptly, Pearce stood. “I’ll walk you halfway home.”
“I want to check your hand tomorrow. Remember that you agreed if it wasn’t better you’d get an X-ray.”
“If it’s not better, I’ll—”
“No. No deals.”
Pearce started to protest, then sighed. “Okay. Come by whenever you’re free. I don’t have any plans.”
“All right,” Wynter said, watching as the large log split in half. The pieces dropped to either side of the dancing ring of flames and lay smoldering alone on the edges of the fire. The blaze was so beautiful as it consumed itself. And so sad.
*
“And then the Little Prince…” Wynter carefully closed the book and leaned over her sleeping daughter to rest it on the windowsill. Ronnie lay curled up against her side, sleeping the dreamless sleep of the innocents. She’d awakened when Wynter had kissed her upon returning home, and had insisted on a story. Wynter leaned down and kissed her forehead once more, then eased out from under the covers and tucked h
er child in securely. A Mickey Mouse night-light by the bed guided her through the small room to the door that connected to hers. She left Ronnie’s door slightly ajar and turned on the standing lamp just inside her own bedroom.
With a sigh, she contemplated her empty double bed and the prospect of reading until she fell asleep. That usually took under five minutes. Tonight, however, she was restless and had a feeling that it would take more than a few chapters of Elizabeth George to wash away the residual tensions of the day. The move, Pearce’s accident, the storm of emotions that her conversation with Pearce about her marriage had brought up for her had left her feeling wired.
A glass of wine might help.
As she passed Ken and Mina’s bedroom, she saw that the door was open. Mina always slept with the door open when Ken was on call, as if to maintain contact with the other sleeping members of the house when the bed beside her was empty. The blue-gray light of the television seeped into the hallway. The sound was muted, but she could hear laughter. Probably Letterman. She tapped lightly on the door and pushed it open an inch. “Mina?”
“You’re up late,” Mina called.
“It’s only midnight.”
“And you’re usually asleep before dinner’s over. Come on in.”
“I was going to get some wine. Can I bring you anything?”
“Popcorn. Make it two bags. And a Dr Pepper.”
“Coming right up.”
Ten minutes later, Wynter returned with a tray laden with snacks and drinks and a bottle of wine under one arm. “I’m going to miss this when I??m living next door.”
“Well, you’re not going to be over there for at least a week until we get you unpacked and settled. And then you’re only going to be next door, which means we can still have slumber parties.” Mina patted the bed beside her. “Come get under the covers and bring all that good stuff with you.”
Wynter set the tray down on the bedside table, put the bottle on the floor, and dug through the closet where she knew Mina kept the extra pillows. She grabbed one, then returned to the bed and kicked off the moccasins she wore around the house. She tossed the pillow onto Ken’s side of the bed, placed the tray carefully in the center, and climbed under the down comforter. With a sigh, she poured a glass of wine, balanced the wineglass on her stomach, and leaned back into the pillows. “I feel guilty about being happy that Ken’s not here tonight.”
“No reason to. He gets me two out of every three nights.” Mina turned down the sound on the television until it was only background noise. Reaching for the popcorn, she said, “Something wrong?”
Wynter sipped her wine. “No, not really. Just—I don’t know, sometimes I’m so busy trying to get through every day that I never really stop to think what I’m doing.”
“You’ve been going pretty much full speed ahead since you were a medical student. Feeling a little burned out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I really like the work. I’m no more tired now than I ever used to be. In fact, it’s a lot easier than it was when Ronnie was three months old and never slept through the night.”
“You had Dave around then,” Mina said carefully.
“Oh yeah, and he was so much help.” Wynter snorted and downed half the wine in her glass. She leaned over the side of the bed and found the bottle, replenished her wine, and took another swallow. Then, remembering her vow not to be bitter about what she couldn’t change, and not to forget that she had had some part in the decisions that had led her into a life she had not wanted, she amended, “All right, he was good with Ronnie in the beginning. And that did make a difference.”
“I wasn’t talking about child care. I was talking about him warming your bed.”
“I’m not talking about sex.”
“Maybe that’s because you haven’t had any for a while.”
Wynter laughed and nearly upset her wine. “I don’t have time to get a haircut, let alone find the time or privacy to have sex.”
“Don’t tell me there aren’t some likely candidates at that hospital that you couldn’t drag off into some empty room for twenty minutes.”
“Oh, please. That’s just what I need. To get the reputation for being an easy lay.”
“Well, would you rather get the reputation of being an Ice Queen and scare all the likely takers away?”
“I’d like,” Wynter said with feigned dignity, “to get the reputation of being an unassailably professional physician.”
“Oh, bull. You just haven’t seen anyone you want to get into the sack.”
Wynter had to admit that that was true. Even well before her divorce, she and Dave had not been sleeping with one another. It had taken her a while to realize that he was home less and less, even more absent than a busy residency would require, and after she had become suspicious, she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him when he was home. When he didn’t challenge their sudden abstinence, she had finally put all the pieces together. She had asked a few friends who were nurses at the hospital what they knew, and they had reluctantly admitted that it was common knowledge that he was involved with a senior medical student. She’d met him at the door after he’d been out all night with another “emergency,” demanded his keys, and told him to pack a suitcase and get out. That had been over a year ago, and with her life in total disorder since, sex had disappeared from her radar.
“I’m not looking for a bedmate.”
“All right,” Mina acquiesced cheerfully, “then what do you think it is that’s gotten you out of sorts?”
“I’m not out of sorts. I’m just…restless.”
“Restless. Restless like you want to take a trip?”
“No.”
“Restless like…you hate your job and want to do something else with your life?”
“No.”
“Restless like you need an emergency vacation from the kids?”
“No. Mina—”
“Restless like—”
“Stop!” Wynter pleaded. “Just forget I said anything.”
“You know I can’t. It’s gonna bother me so much that I won’t be able to sleep.”
“Liar.”
“Are you going to eat that popcorn?”
“No, go ahead.”
“So,” Mina observed, tearing into the second bag, “maybe it’s got something to do with Pearce.”
A rush of heat started at Wynter’s toes and climbed to the top of her head. “What are you talking about?”
“Maybe she’s making you uneasy.”
Wynter’s throat was so dry she could barely speak. “What…why do you say that?”
“Because she’s got the hots for you.”
Wynter shivered as if the wind had suddenly blown through the room, carrying slivers of ice that pricked at her skin. “That’s ridiculous.”
Mina laughed. “Oh, honey. You do need a vacation if you can’t recognize when someone is looking at you like they want to lick every little drop of sweat from your—”
“Pearce is a lesbian. She’s not going to be looking at me that way.”
“Last time I looked, you were female.”
“That’s different. I’m not even her type.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve seen the kind of women she goes for, and believe me…This is ridiculous. What difference does it make what kind of woman Pearce Rifkin is attracted to? It wouldn’t be me.”
“You sound like that might bother you,” Mina said with a gentle question in her voice.
“That’s not what I meant. I just meant…” Wynter had no idea what she meant. She emptied her wineglass in a long swallow and gathered the remnants of their late-night snack. “I promised Ronnie she could help me make pancakes tomorrow morning. Which means she’s going to be up at five a.m. We’d better get some sleep.”
“You can snuggle up right here,” Mina said. “You know I don’t snore.”
“Thanks,” Wynter said, leaning over to give Mina a quick hug. “I’d better bunk i
n next to her so that I can divert her if she decides to go exploring when she wakes up.”
“Well, if you want company, I’m here.”
“I appreciate it. Night.” Wynter made her way through the silent house to the kitchen. As she methodically rinsed the wineglass, put the bottle in the recycler, and tied up a bag of trash, she kept thinking about what Mina had said. That Pearce had looked at her with desire. It shouldn’t have meant anything to her, no more than if a man she was not attracted to had made an overture. But Pearce wasn’t a man, and the only thing she knew for certain was that she liked the way Pearce looked at her.
Chapter Fifteen
Pearce watched the fire die. The room grew steadily darker and a numbing chill settled upon her. Finally, she roused herself enough to stand up and squint at the Seth Thomas clock on the mantel, one of the few keepsakes she had wanted from her grandmother’s home after her death. She could have had anything she wanted from the Main Line estate, but the only other things she’d taken were the photograph albums. When she was young, she and her grandmother had spent hours poring through the albums that had seemed enormous to her then. They had been filled with treasures—photographs of her grandmother when she was a child Pearce’s age, images of old-fashioned cars and young men and women dressed in 1920s clothes, mementos of her grandmother and grandfather’s courtship, and faded pictures of her grandfather in uniform from World War II. She loved to look at the hospital tents and jeeps with white crosses painted on the side, imagining herself in one of those field hospitals under a sweltering sun with the backdrop of aircraft and mortars for company while she performed life-saving surgery. Each photograph had been a story, and she had always loved her grandmother’s stories, no matter how many times she heard them. Now she kept the albums in a sealed plastic container on the top shelf of her closet, where they would be safe.
The clock chimed once, twelve thirty. She slid the key beside it off the mantel, carefully opened the hinged faceplate, and wound the springs for the hands and the gong. It was a seven-day clock, and every Saturday night she wound it, just as she had seen her grandmother do throughout the years of her youth. It was a ritual that reminded her of the best years of her life. She closed the clock and repositioned it in its place in the center of the mantel. Then she flicked on a wall switch that lit the chandelier in the center of the room and crossed to the bathroom, where she turned on the shower and efficiently stripped off her clothes while waiting for the water to heat. She let the warm water sluice over her injured hand while lathering her hair with the other. She didn’t linger in the soothing spray. She had places to go.
