She did as he ordered, not because she wanted to but because obedience came instinctively to her. “Ow,” she said again when he shined the light into each eye. “What’s your name?” she asked. Suddenly the desire to know felt imperative.
He stuck the light between his teeth before he answered. “Surly,” he said. Or at least that’s what it sounded like.
“Surly? What are you, the lost dwarf?” she said.
He plucked the light from between his teeth. “If you’re cracking jokes, then I’m really worried about you, Miss P.”
“I’m funny,” she said, closing her eyes against the blinding light again. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“I’m checking your pupils for head trauma,” he said.
“Would you know what it looks like?”
“If not, then those years at medical school were a waste.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I’m a radiologist,” he said.
“Is that a doctor?”
“It’s a doctor who works regular hours,” he said. “It was either surgery or radiology. Surgeons have terrible hours.” He ran his hands down her arms and legs. Blair closed her eyes, both disconcerted by and reveling in the sensation. When was the last time someone touched her? She couldn’t remember.
“Nothing is broken,” he said. “Your pupils are reacting normally.”
“I’m going to live?” she asked.
“For now. Probably not much longer if you pull more stunts like that. What were you doing?”
“Trying to get the maple,” she said.
He frowned and checked her pupils again. “You’re speaking gibberish,” he said when her pupils checked out all right.
“The maple,” she repeated. “The seedling.” She tried to lift her arm to point, but her senses were still scrambled. The arm fell uselessly to her side. “In the gutter,” she added.
He turned to look behind him. “That little thing? You risked your life for that?”
“Seedlings become trees,” she explained.
“In about thirty years,” he said. “Let’s sit you up.” He put his arms around her and pulled her to a sitting position. Blair felt her face heat. She had never been so close to a man before. “Okay?” he asked. He steadied her with his hands on her shoulders.
“I think,” she said. Now her instability was due more to his touch than her fall from the ladder.
“You knocked me for a loop, Miss P. Don’t do that again.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked.
His smile looked chagrined. “My little nickname for you. You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“Miss Prim.”
Her jaw dropped in an affronted expression. “I’m not prim,” she said.
“Bad news: you are. I’ve been calling you that since I moved in,” he said.
“You can stop now. My name is Blair.”
He shook his head. “It’s no good. I can’t make the name compute. You’ll always be Miss P to me.”
She frowned. “How would you like it if I called you Surly?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t care.”
“Fine, that’s what I’m going to call you,” she threatened.
He held out his hand for her inspection. “I’m shaking,” he said.
She looked down at his steady hand and tried to wrap her mind around the fact that he was a doctor. “You are surly,” she accused. “And…and…” she tossed about for the worst insult she could come up with. “Your trash cans don’t match.”
“What?” He was smiling as if he found her amusing, but she was serious. The trash can issue had been bothering her for some time, since the day he moved in.
“Your trash cans. They’re from the same company. They’re supposed to match, but they don’t. One is green, and the other is orange. They don’t even go together. How can you stand it?”
“And I accused you of being prim,” he said. “Clearly I was mistaken.”
“This is a nice neighborhood, and your ugly orange can is bringing us down,” she said. It felt good to say it out loud, to admit the thing she had been thinking for so long. In response, he laughed. A lot.
“This is the first time a woman has ever complained about my can,” he said between laughter.
Heat flamed her face again. “That’s not what I meant,” she sputtered. “You made that naughty, not me.”
“Oh, Miss P, I haven’t laughed this much in ages.”
“Yes, burglary and traumatic ladder dives are a laugh riot,” she said.
He tried to stifle his amusement and ended up laughing harder. “You are funny,” he said, wiping tears. “How does your head feel?”
“Swimmy,” she said.
“Any nausea, double or blurred vision?”
“No. Are you going to charge me for this exam? Should I give you my insurance information?”
He thought she was making a joke, but her delivery was deadpan, so it was hard to tell. “The first one is on the house,” he said. “Can you stand?”
“I think so.” She started to rise and looked at him in surprise when his arm slid around her waist to offer support.
“I don’t want you taking another header,” he explained.
She wobbled to the house and he released her once they reached the couch. Her head still felt dazed, but more stunned than injured. “Why don’t you lie down,” he suggested.
She did as he said. He propped a pillow under her feet, and that was when she noticed she wasn’t wearing her shoes anymore. “What happened to my shoes?”
“When the body receives a trauma, the feet curl up. Shoes often fly off. That’s why there are always shoes strewn around the highway after a big accident.”
“I didn’t know that.” She was oddly delighted by the new information.
“That makes you smile?” he asked.
“I like to learn new things. And it’s a little funny to think of my shoes flying through the air like the bad witch from The Wizard of Oz.”
“Let me retrieve your ruby slippers, and I’ll leave you to rest,” he said. He returned a minute later and perched on the edge of the couch. “I’m going to leave you my number. Call if you have any of the things we talked about or if you have sharp pains or memory loss.”
“If I have memory loss, how will I remember to call you?” she asked.
“Your logic is powerful magic. Maybe I’ll pop back later and check on you. Are you going to be okay here?”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time,” she said, but her tone was gentle.
Maybe it’s time for someone else to take a turn. That was the first phrase that popped in his head, but of course he didn’t say it because that was crazy. He was a doctor, sworn to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, and she was a neighbor in need. That was all this was. He didn’t hate her, and he wasn’t afraid she was chasing him. Maybe he even liked her a little bit. But there wouldn’t be anything more between them than a neighborly acquaintance. He smiled and stood, but she called out before he could leave.
“Thank you. I appreciate you coming to my rescue. Again. I’m not very good at saying thanks.”
“You’re doing a fine job as far as I can tell,” he said. He bestowed another smile, one she returned this time, and then let himself out.
Chapter 6
Blair woke early on Tuesday. She was sore all over from her dive off the ladder, but not unbearably. Nothing a little pain reliever and some stretching wouldn’t relieve. Achy muscles couldn’t tamp down her enthusiasm for the coming project, however. If she were more of a fearless people person, she would be a professional organizer. There was nothing she liked better than making order of chaos. For that reason, she was delighted when she stepped into the church library and found it to be a disaster.
She had printed out the Dewey decimal system as a reference, but from what she could tell, most of the books were fiction. There were a few self-help titles and some pare
nting manuals. A couple of books were about finances, and one was about sex. That one she shoved aside with a blush. Did people really read about such things? Blair couldn’t imagine.
With the exception of some C.S. Lewis, she was dismayed not to see any of what she considered to be classic literature. Where was the Shakespeare, the Austen, the Tolstoy? Maybe after she had everything organized, she would make it her mission to build the library’s selection. Christian fiction was all well and good, but one should never leave off the classics, or so Blair believed.
She was so entranced with her new project that four hours passed before she realized. Not until Susan poked her head in to say hello did Blair realize how much time had gone by.
“Things already look better in here,” Susan said. Her sunny smile was firmly in place. “I have some free time today. I wondered if you might like to go to lunch.”
No, Blair did not. She had the feeling that Susan saw Blair as a project in the same way that Blair saw the library as a project—something to be reformed and made better by her interference. Her knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but then she thought of Tristan. If she was able to report that she accepted a lunch invitation from someone, he would no doubt be proud of her. “Okay,” she found herself agreeing. Tristan, you’d better give me a gold star for this.
If there was anything worse than talking on the phone, it was trying to make small talk with a stranger over a meal. Blair found the combined actions of eating and concentrating on trying to make conversation overwhelming. Today she decided she would order something small so she could get the eating part over with and try to focus on words. Susan offered to drive, but Blair found a tactful way to refuse. Or at least she hoped it was tactful. It sounded tactful in her head, but her delivery was lacking. Extroverts like Susan never seemed to understand that being trapped in the car with a stranger was more stressful than enjoyable. Blair would be covered in an anxiety-induced flop sweat if she accepted the invitation. So she declined, drove her own car, and met Susan at a fast food restaurant down the street from the church.
Susan knew exactly what she wanted, but Blair dawdled for a long time. As a rule, she didn’t eat much fast food and was therefore unacquainted with the menu. A line formed behind her, making her so nervous that she blurted the first thing she read. Her desire to eat something small didn’t work out when she came away with a super-sized value meal she would in no way be able to finish. She tried not to grimace at her tray as she carried it to the table--too much fat, sodium, and sugar, much more than the Surgeon General recommended.
“You don’t come here much, do you?” Susan asked.
Blair shook her head. “It would probably be easier than cooking, but I’ve always been thrifty that way. I cook a month’s worth of meals, portion them into individualized servings, and stick them in the freezer.”
Susan was giving her the look again, the one that made her wish she had kept that bit of information to herself. It wasn’t normal for a single person to cook all her food. Blair knew, and that was why she so rarely divulged personal information. Far from being unable to read social cues, she was too sensitive to them. She could tell when people thought she was crazy. Like now with Susan.
“I wish I could do that,” Susan said, still smiling even as she shook her head in dismay. “I’m afraid I eat here and all the other restaurants in town too often. My kids barely remember when I used to cook. We’re always so busy.”
Was it possible that Susan didn’t think Blair was crazy and instead she was a little envious of the homemade food? Or was her self-deprecation a way of putting Blair at ease? The possibility that it might be the former compelled Blair to know Susan more. Why was she so busy? “How many kids do you have?” She knew from Tanya that children were always a safe topic with moms.
“Two,” Susan said. “Two boys.” Her smile faded. “They’re active in sports, so we’re always running from one practice to another.”
What made her smile fade? Blair couldn’t believe she was actually curious about what was going on in Susan’s world. She hadn’t seen that coming. She had intended to deflect personal questions and try to behave like she was the type of person who often lunched with a friend. Instead she suddenly wanted to know all about Susan. “Do you work?”
Susan’s smile reappeared with gusto. “I’m the church secretary.”
“Oh, I probably should have known that,” Blair said. She hovered on the periphery of the church, attending on Sunday mornings but not becoming any more involved than that. Until recently.
“It’s okay. I haven’t been doing it that long. What about you? What do you do?”
“I do some freelance editing work,” Blair said. She tried not to tell people about her inheritance because they often had the idea that she was wealthy. She wasn’t wealthy, at least not by American standards. She was simply very careful with what her parents had left.
“Are you married? Dating? Divorced?”
“No, I’m single, just single.” Blair frowned. She hadn’t meant to sound sad. She wasn’t sad about being single. She had accepted her fate long ago and felt no desire to change it, except for the dream that was Tristan. But that was all he was—a dream. Her brain alerted her to the fact that it was time for her to ask a question. Tristan had told her to imagine conversations as a game of pass. Words were the ball. When one person said words and passed the ball, it became the other person’s turn to say something. “What about you?”
“Divorced,” Susan said. The smile faltered again. “I never imagined my life this way, you know? Single mom with two kids. My husband and I were high school sweethearts. I thought we would be together forever. He apparently thought we would be together until someone else came along—namely his secretary.” She shook her head. “His secretary—such a cliché. And I didn’t see it coming. Idiot.”
Susan was sad. Blair didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before, maybe because she hadn’t been looking. But the smile was a cover for everything else. No wonder she smiled all the time. If she didn’t, then she might cry. “I think the real idiot in this situation is the guy who had an affair with his secretary. That’s never going to work, and when it ends, he’s not going to have any idea where to find his paperwork.”
Susan blinked at her a few times, trying to decide if she was serious, and then she laughed. “I think paperwork is the last thing on his mind right now. You should see this girl, and I do mean girl. No stretch marks or saddlebags, if you know what I’m saying.”
“That’s disgusting,” Blair said. “I think you’re beautiful.” She meant it, too. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have said it. Susan had the sort of natural beauty Blair had always envied. She didn’t have to spend hours making sure everything was perfect in order to look put together. Perhaps she was a bit on the chubby side, and maybe she had stretch marks—Blair didn’t know, and she didn’t want to find out—but she was lovely. And she seemed genuinely nice.
“Thank you,” Susan choked. “I’m sorry.” She dashed at her eyes. “This is so ridiculous. It’s been two years. I keep waiting for the pain to go away, to get better. But I have no idea how to do this alone. I think I’m messing everything up.”
“It would be nice if life came with an instruction manual,” Blair agreed.
“I said that to someone once. They told me it did—The Bible.”
“That’s terrible. What did you do?” Blair asked. What a trite thing to say to someone in pain. Even she wasn’t that insensitive. At least, she hoped she wasn’t.
Susan laughed and swiped at her eyes again. “Nothing. I slunk away feeling defeated for not being a better Christian.”
“I’m going to therapy,” Blair blurted. Susan looked up in surprise. “I don’t…I don’t know how to talk to people, to relate. This is the first time I’ve ever successfully had lunch with someone, if spewing the fact that I’m in therapy is considered successful. The point is that everyone needs help sometimes. If you need help, then you shouldn’t be afraid
to ask for it. That’s what Tristan says. Tristan is my therapist.”
Susan toyed with her straw, thinking. Blair wanted to take her own turn at slinking away. What had she been thinking to own up to such a humiliating thing? At last Susan spoke, and there were tears sparkling on her lashes again. “I think this lunch with you has done more for me than a few sessions of therapy ever could. Thank you for listening and not judging. You wouldn’t believe how many people hear my story and wonder if I’m to blame for my husband’s infidelity. If only I had lost the baby weight, been a better listener, a more enthusiastic sex partner.” Blair flushed with embarrassment at the s-e-x word, but Susan was undaunted. “I’m serious. Someone actually said that to me once. As if they had any idea of what that part of our lives was like. I’m so tired of taking the blame for this when I’m the one who’s still here. I tried to save my marriage. Even after he cheated, I was willing to make it work. But he didn’t want me.” She sniffled, wadded her napkin, and used it to wipe her nose.
There was a part of Blair that wanted to tell Susan to forget him, but she knew it wouldn’t help. All the words in the world wouldn’t help someone who was hurting so deeply. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. “I’m really sorry. I wish there was something I could do to make it better.”
Susan smiled again, but this time the smile was sad. “So do I. I’m so tired of being sad, of being a victim. I wish I could snap my fingers and move on, but it’s not that easy. Everyone says time heals all wounds, but it’s been two years and it feels like it was yesterday.”
“I prefer the saying that time wounds all heels,” Blair said.
“That’s good,” Susan agreed. “I’m going to have to remember that one.”
Lunch ended a little while later with plans to meet again soon. Blair had agreed to “Let’s do this again sometime” on countless occasions without ever intending to follow through. This time she meant it. She liked Susan but, more than that, Susan needed a friend.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? Page 6
