Last Chance Hero

by Cathleen Armstrong

  Small and plain, the church could hold possibly one hundred fifty people, if they squeezed together on the pocked and polished wooden pews. It had a platform with a pulpit and a choir loft at the front, a piano on one side, and an organ on the other. And that was all.

  People didn’t slip into their pews and silently read their bulletins until the service started; they stopped in the aisle to greet a new arrival, they leaned over the back of their pews and waved to get the attention of someone sitting a few rows behind them, they even got up and crossed the room to speak to someone on the other side. Jess was a little nervous following Elizabeth down the aisle. She was accustomed to footsteps silenced by thick carpet, light filtering through richly colored stained glass windows, the pipes of the organ rising majestically against the wall. You know, church. What had she allowed herself to be drawn into?

  Elizabeth stopped at the third pew on the left and stepped back. Jess slipped in and sat down next to Andy before she knew he was there.

  “Morning.” Andy seemed mighty pleased with himself at her surprise. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “Good morning.” Jess must have looked as puzzled as she felt, because Andy’s grin widened. “Did I tell you I was bringing Elizabeth to church this morning?”

  “Is that why you think I come to church? I’m here every Sunday.”

  His tone was teasing, but Jess was embarrassed. She had sounded a little presumptuous, and she knew it. She felt her cheeks warm as she looked away.

  “Hey.” Andy bumped her shoulder with his own. “I was just joking with you. Ray called and asked me to take Elizabeth to church for him, then he called back and said you were going to. So yes, I knew you would be here, and I knew where you’d be sitting too. So go ahead and feel stalked. You’re entitled.”

  Jess started to reply when she felt a slight nudge from Elizabeth’s elbow. Sometime in the last few minutes, everything had changed. The room was silent except for the softly playing piano, and everyone had taken their seats. An atmosphere of anticipation filled the room as the organ joined the piano. The music swelled as a door to the choir loft opened and the choir filed in. Juanita was up there, and her husband, Russ. Jess wasn’t sure why that surprised her, but it did. Before she could give it much thought, though, the choir director faced the choir, raised both hands, and nodded to the pianist, and they began to sing.

  Jess was astonished at how good they were. Not that they could be taken for a professionally trained chorale, but their song was so authentic, so heartfelt, that Jess felt tears sting her eyes. She even found herself seeing Juanita in a different light, and that probably was the thing that surprised her most. Maybe there was more to Juanita than she knew.

  The rest of the service was as pleasing as the music. The minister, who Elizabeth introduced as Brother Parker after the service, was warm, easy to understand, and to the point, even if she’d never have been able to keep up with his Scripture references if it weren’t for Andy’s help. There was no yelling, no pulpit pounding, no flinging of guilt, and no snake handling. Truthfully, she wasn’t really expecting snake handling, but you hear things.

  “So, what do you think of our little church?” Andy eased out into the crowded aisle with her after the benediction had been pronounced.

  “I like it.” Jess was a little surprised to hear herself say it. “It’s not at all what I was expecting, but I really liked it.”

  “What were you expecting?” Andy raised an eyebrow.

  “Jess, honey, come here.” Elizabeth reached for her. “There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

  Gratefully, Jess turned away. She really did not want to tell Andy what she had been afraid of. In fact, now that she thought about it, she felt kind of silly.

  11

  How was your vacation?” Jess sat down in the chair across from Dr. Benavides, cradling a cup of coffee.

  “I felt pretty good till I got here this morning.” He looked up from the file open in front of him and gestured at the stack waiting for his attention. “Did you see anyone while I was gone?”

  “I saw as many as would let me.” Jess shifted in her seat. “A few who had appointments, especially those who didn’t need urgent care, said they’d reschedule and come back when you were here.”

  “Well, they rescheduled.” He sighed and went back to his file. “Is that fresh coffee?”

  “I’m sorry?” The question seemed to come from nowhere.

  “Is that coffee fresh? It can taste like mud.” Dr. Benavides glanced up.

  “Um, yes. It just finished brewing.” Jess hesitated a second while the silence grew. “Would you like me to get you a cup?”

  “Please. With some nonfat milk and one and a half sweeteners.” His attention had already returned to his files.

  Jess got up and went to the break room. Getting Dr. Benavides his coffee wasn’t the problem; in fact, maybe she should have offered when she came in and sat down. But his peremptory attitude rankled a bit. She was a colleague, after all.

  He didn’t acknowledge her, or the mug of coffee she placed on his desk, and after a second or two, she moved toward the door. He stopped her by slapping his file closed and leaning back in his chair.

  “We’ve got to figure something out. I want to retire someday, sooner rather than later, and at this rate it’s not going to happen. Besides, it’s a big waste of resources having you just hanging around making coffee while I work myself to death.”

  Jess slipped back into the chair in front of his desk, feeling a little as if she had been called into the principal’s office. Surely he didn’t think this was her idea.

  “So this is what we’re going to do.” He glared over the top of his glasses. “I want you to make rounds with me at the hospital, get to know people so they’ll feel a little more comfortable with you.”

  Jess nodded. She wasn’t sure how that would work on the days she would be in Last Chance, but now didn’t seem like the best time to bring that up.

  “I’m going to be cutting my office hours back, and there’ll be no more of this.” He slapped the files of the patients who had rescheduled while he was gone. “I don’t know what the desk was thinking letting people reschedule their appointments for when I got back. What’d they think I was taking a vacation for, anyway?”

  Jess cleared her throat. “That might be my fault. They were so upset when you weren’t here that I told them they could reschedule if they weren’t comfortable seeing me.”

  Dr. Benavides just looked at her a moment. “Oh, you did, did you? Well, let me tell you right now that if you start out mollycoddling your patients like that, setting aside valuable time for them and then letting them waltz out of here for no good reason without using it, you’ll wind up good and sorry in a hurry, and either working twice as hard as you should be here, or sitting in an empty office over there in Last Chance wondering where your patients are.”

  “Well, I am sorry. I just didn’t want you coming back to a bunch of angry patients.”

  “They can get mad on their own time, not mine.” He took a sip of his coffee, scowled at it, shot Jess a look over the top of his glasses, and set it back on his desk before going back to his work.

  “All right. Message received. It won’t happen again.” Jess was aware of the stereotypical image of the old irascible family doctor barking orders at everyone like a drill sergeant. She had always thought it a television cliché or something from the distant past. Apparently, Dr. Benavides hadn’t received that memo, or had wadded it up and tossed it if he had. She was betting on the latter.

  “There is one more thing, if you have a minute.”

  Dr. Benavides seemed a little startled when he looked up and found her still sitting in front of his desk. “Shoot.”

  “Sue Anderson brought Emma in for a checkup while you were gone.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with her health.”

  He smiled. “They’re a great little family, a
ren’t they? I’ve taken care of all three of them since they were born.”

  Deciding that she’d better tread lightly, Jess chose her words carefully. “Emma is an exceptionally well-behaved child, don’t you think?”

  “I wish all my patients were like Emma, and that includes a good portion of the adults as well. Why? Was there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. Well, Mrs. Anderson was a little upset to find me here instead of you, but the examination was fine. It’s just that . . .” Jess took a deep breath to give herself time to marshal her thoughts. “It’s just that Emma sat up there on the examination table and didn’t say a word. Mrs. Anderson answered every question I directed to Emma. And when I suggested it was time for a flu shot, Emma never even blinked. I’ve never seen that in a child before. It’s just not natural behavior for a child of Emma’s age.”

  “You don’t think so?” Dr. Benavides was starting to sound impatient. “Well, for the first twenty-five years or so I was in practice, that’s exactly how children behaved. It was what was expected of them. It’s only been in the last fifteen or twenty years that there’s been all this negotiating with kids in the doctor’s office, promising them this or that if they’ll just stop screaming and let the doctor examine them. I’ll tell you what, if more parents were like Sue Anderson, the world would be in a lot better shape than it is. I know my job would be a lot easier, that’s for sure.”

  Jess suspected that Dr. Benavides’s memories of the past were a little rosier than reality would decree, and that his take on the present was a little harsher, but she also knew it was time to let the subject drop. She got to her feet.

  “Well, thank you for your time. And again, I’m sorry I allowed things to stack up for you.”

  He nodded distractedly and opened another file. “Tell Theresa to make another pot of coffee, would you? And have her bring me a cup; she knows how I like it. Oh, and don’t get too involved in anything. We’re leaving for rounds at the hospital in about twenty minutes.”

  By the time Thursday rolled around, Jess was more than ready for her first day in her Last Chance office. It had taken all her resolve to drive right past earlier in the day when she headed for San Ramon and her obligatory rounds with Dr. Benavides, especially as her assistant Eva’s car was already in the parking lot and the lights were on inside. But now, as she was on her way back to Last Chance, she could feel apprehension begin to do battle with her excitement. What if this was a colossal mistake and she wound up having to close down the office and return full time to Dr. Benavides’s office? Frankly, she wasn’t sure she could do that.

  He had been a bit blunt when they first started talking about Jess’s working with him and very clear about what he expected, but Jess liked that. She appreciated clarity and assumed he would warm up when they got to know each other better. Wrong. In fact, if anything, he had grown even more brusque and imperious. She knew his first name was Alonso, but she had never heard anyone use it. Certainly she had never been invited to call him anything but Dr. Benavides. He didn’t call her anything, although she had heard him refer to her as Dr. MacLeod when he spoke of her to others.

  Jess knew she had a few appointments that afternoon, mostly due to Rita’s relentless promotion of what she called Jess’s grand opening, but the white van in the parking lot surprised her. As far as she knew, her first appointment wasn’t until this afternoon, 1:00, to be precise. Could someone have called Eva that morning for an appointment—all on their own?

  Excitement pushed apprehension aside as she drove around to the back where the door to her office was located. She tried to muster a manner of cool professionalism. She was, after all, only doing what she had spent years preparing for, what she had in fact already been doing at the family practice in San Ramon, and what she planned to do every day until she was at least as old as Dr. Benavides. But in her heart of hearts, she really expected trumpets to blow and confetti to fall when she fitted her key in the door and let herself into her office. She was home.

  Slipping into her crisp white lab coat, Jess went to find out who the van belonged to. She found him kneeling behind the desk in the waiting room checking the telephone’s connection to the wall. Eva leaned on the desk, chatting and giggling. She looked up when Jess walked in.

  “The phone wasn’t working right, so I called and Chad came right over.”

  “Yep, almost got you up and running.” Chad didn’t look up.

  “What’s the problem?” Jess peered over his shoulder as if that would tell her something.

  “Nothing much. Just a little hitch in the system. Be done in a sec.”

  “I see.” Jess did not, but Chad didn’t seem inclined to explain further. “Eva, could I see you a minute?”

  “Sure.” The smile on Eva’s face faded to guardedness as Jess turned to lead the way back to her office.

  Jess closed the office door behind them and folded her arms. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “Going on? Nothing.” Eva’s eyes were wide with innocence. “The phones wouldn’t work, and I just called Chad to come fix them. He’s almost done.”

  “Why didn’t you call me first? If there’s a problem, I need to know about it.”

  “The phones were out, remember?” Eva grinned. “That’s why I called Chad in the first place.”

  “And you called Chad how? On your cell phone?”

  Eva didn’t answer, but her pout said a lot.

  “Look, Eva, don’t get me wrong.” Jess took a deep breath and smiled. The last thing she needed was to alienate her office assistant, even if she was on loan from Dr. Benavides’s office. If Eva walked, she’d have to close up again until she found a replacement. “I appreciate your taking the initiative to get a major problem solved. We can’t operate without phones; I know that. But I do need a heads-up before we obligate ourselves for unexpected expenditures, okay?”

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about that.” Eva seemed only slightly mollified. “Chad’s doing this as a favor. There’s no charge.”

  “The phone company does favors?” Jess did not like the sound of this.

  “Well, he’s not actually on the clock. His shift doesn’t start until later, but when I called, he just came on over.”

  “I see.” Things actually were becoming clearer, and Jess found herself wondering if there ever had been anything wrong with the phones. That may have been just a convenient story concocted when they saw her drive in.

  “All done here.” The voice from the waiting room was muffled by the closed door.

  “Okay, go take care of that for us, would you? Thank him for me, but remember, we need to do everything on the up-and-up here. That means service calls made during business hours and invoices recorded and paid. Are we good with that?”

  Eva may have rolled her eyes as she left, but Jess let it go. For the time being, at least, it was just going to be the two of them here at the Last Chance office, and Jess wanted a team, not the reverential hierarchy Dr. Benavides presided over.

  “Good morning. Is the doctor in?” Rita’s voice, unmistakable in its brisk enthusiasm, floated down the short hall from the waiting room. “I don’t want to bother her if she’s busy, but if she’s got a minute. . . .”

  “I’m absolutely free at the moment, Rita.” Even if Jess had determined to appear cool and professional, the delight in Rita’s smile was contagious, and Jess found herself returning it as she walked in. “What can I do for you?”

  “Look at you!” Rita beamed. “You’re a doctor!”

  Jess held out her arms and twirled once. “So it would appear. I have the outfit, the office, everything but the patients.”

  “They’ll come. Don’t you worry about that.” Rita set a big, fluffy fern in a pink foil–covered pot on Eva’s desk. “Here. I brought you a little something to celebrate your grand opening. I just wish we could have done more.”

  “The plant’s perfect, Rita. Thank you.” Jess smiled. “And thanks for understanding about the grand opening
.”

  “You know I wasn’t talking about a bouncy house and hot dogs in the parking lot, right? Or a free blood-pressure clinic. Although now that I think about it, that might not have been a bad idea. But I wish you would have let us do something to let folks know you’re here.”

  “But you have.” Jess was developing a real fondness for the dynamo who was her landlord and first friend in Last Chance. “I think you’ve introduced me to every single person in town—twice!—and told them they need to come here instead of going clear up to San Ramon. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were jumping into doorways or heading off the other way when they see us coming.”

  “Honey, if I let a little thing like that stop me, this town would have gone to pot years ago.” Rita adjusted her glasses and peered at Jess over the rim. “You’ve got to have a tough hide if you want to get things done in a place like Last Chance. Besides, I’ve learned the art of turning up before they see me coming.”

  Jess grinned. “I had no idea. I thought those were all chance encounters.”

  “And that’s my plan.” Rita adjusted her purse on her arm and headed for the door. “Oh, there is one thing. Every quarter we have a little reception at the town council meeting called ‘Meet the Council.’ Folks come to find out what’s going on and to express their concerns, if they have any. They’re all welcome at every meeting, of course, but if you give one a special name and serve cake and coffee, they’re more likely to come. Anyway, the next one is three weeks from Monday, and I think it would be a real good idea if you came and told us a little about yourself. You know, where you came from, what your family’s like, why you chose Last Chance to settle in.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Rita. I think they all know me by now, don’t they?” Jess had no idea how many people came to these Meet the Council nights, but she was pretty sure she had to have met all of them. Rita was nothing if not thorough.

  “I think you should come. You’d be surprised how people loosen up when they have a plate of chocolate cake in their hands. And there should be a pretty good crowd this time. Andy Ryan has already said he’d come, and I know folks are going to want to come see him.”