Thursday Afternoons

by Tracey Richardson

  Finally Ellis begins to explain why she’s here. She looks around the table as she speaks, levels those same administrative and vaguely condescending eyes on Amy as she does everyone else. But even with her cool authority cloaking her like a veil, she’s still gorgeous. Still sex on heels. And Amy can’t help but remember the joy she saw in those same eyes the last time they were together. Ellis’s vulnerability had also been on full display in bed, whether she intended it that way or not, and Amy can’t quite reconcile that with the woman she sees now. This woman who is made of steel. This woman who is all business. This woman who is supremely confident in her abilities and her authority and will not think twice before she lowers the boom on Amy and her colleagues and the patients who need this hospital. This is not her lover. This is her executioner.

  Amy feels sick. Because whatever happens in the coming weeks or months at the hospital, she knows one thing for sure: Her affair with Ellis is over.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Ellis staggers out of the meeting like she’s stepping into sunlight after weeks in the dark. She slips out a back door, wanting to avoid running into Abby—Amy—at all costs. Hiding won’t last, and she’ll have to see Amy eventually, sooner rather than later, because she’s going to start meeting privately with each department head. What she knows for sure is she can’t face Amy anymore today, because her entire facade of being in control will collapse and she’ll be unveiled as…what? As not wanting to give Amy up? Of needing her? Of still wanting her so badly, it almost physically hurts? That’s just the personal side of the equation. On the business side of it, she has no idea how she’s going to face Amy, given their history together, without her credibility ending up in tatters. How the hell is Amy going to take her seriously after seeing her naked? After…doing amazing things to her while she was naked?

  She nearly runs to her car and practically dives inside. Oh God. Will Amy tell anyone about them? No way will Ellis be able to work with these people, especially the corporate heads who’ve hired her, if word gets out that she’s been sleeping with the Erie Shores Hospital’s chief of surgery. Everyone will assume there’s a conflict of interest, that Ellis is incapable of being objective, incapable of doing her job. Christ, what a nightmare. She might not even be able to work in the business of health care again if this gets out. Not that she’s done anything technically wrong. But to the outside world, what does hooking up with a stranger for casual sex say about her judgment? About her morals? About her reliability? Ellis rests her forehead on the steering wheel, unable to decide which she feels most like doing, crying or throwing up.

  And then the obvious hits her like a sledgehammer. She’ll have to give Amy up permanently. Immediately. And goddammit, she doesn’t want to.

  Chapter Eleven

  “So when’s your meeting with Dragon Lady?”

  Kate pops a coffee pod into the Keurig machine in the staff lounge before looking expectantly at Amy. There’s no separate lounge in the hospital for doctors, since there’s usually only ever three or four around at any given time and sometimes only a couple. Amy likes it this way. Doctors who only hang out with each other can get too insular in their thinking, too socially incestuous.

  “Dragon Lady?” Oh, right, Ellis. With the name recognition comes the heat crawling furiously up her neck and into her face. She hopes Kate doesn’t notice. “Monday.”

  Kate removes her cup and slides one in for Amy, then throws another pod into the machine. “I hope you can talk some sense into her. These bean counters don’t give a shit about the patients, they’re only looking at numbers.”

  Amy winces. She hopes Ellis isn’t like that, but it’s more than likely that she’s exactly like that. Ellis. She still can’t get used that being her name, nor can she get used to the idea of Ellis determining her fate, as well as the fate of her colleagues, her patients, the hospital. “Maybe she’ll be different.” Please let her be different.

  “Yeah, right. They never are.”

  Kate is pretty much a pessimist. Or at least she has been since her wife Anne’s death. Amy wishes there was something she could say or do to make Kate happy. She’s been able to cheer her up occasionally, make her smile and even laugh, though laughing is rare. But happy? Not a chance.

  “Maybe they won’t beat us up too bad,” Amy says for her own benefit as well as Kate’s. “Nobody’s told us what the end game is, so until then, I don’t want to think the worst.” If she lets herself think the worst, she’ll start thinking Ellis somehow betrayed her, duped her. She doesn’t want to think that, because for as long as she can, she’d much rather hold on to the fantasy that Ellis is an incredible, lovely, sexy, gorgeous, kind, and caring woman who’s a firecracker in bed and who cares for Amy and would never do anything to hurt her or cause her trouble. It might be Pollyanna bullshit, but she needs, for now, to believe it.

  Kate, however, is not wearing the same rose-colored glasses. “You’ll fight to keep us the way we are, won’t you? To keep the staff and services we have?”

  Amy retrieves her coffee mug from beneath the machine and takes a sip. Not gourmet, but definitely better than the coffee in the cafeteria. “Of course I will. I’m sure they’ll look at everything equally, though OB and the ER might be in for a rough ride, if I’m being completely honest.” Dozens of hospitals across the country have eliminated birthing services over the past decade.

  “I know our birth numbers have been trending down the last few years. But dammit, Ames, if they start closing the ER on weekends or overnight, people will die. Look at your brain injury boy, Jeffrey. He wouldn’t have made it if our ER hadn’t been available.”

  Amy shakes her head. “I’ll do my best to see that we keep what we have. We all will. But…”

  Kate’s not letting it go. She’s getting worked up. “If they shut down our OR’s, I’ll have to move. I don’t want to switch to another specialty. I won’t do it.”

  “You won’t have to. Our operating rooms are busy. They’d be stupid to shut them down or even to scale them back.”

  Kate passes her a look that says nothing would surprise her. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. You’re single. And cute.”

  Amy nearly drops her cup. “Excuse me?”

  “Dragon Lady. And you.” Kate’s laughter is conspiratorial. “Maybe you could seduce her and sweet talk her into going easy on us.”

  Amy sloshes coffee over the rim of her cup. “Dammit.”

  “Whoa, a surgeon being clumsy? I hope you don’t have anything serious on your schedule today.”

  “Very funny, Hendy.”

  “So you don’t like my little seduction idea? You gotta admit, Ms. Hall is pretty goddamned hot. If you’re into the domineering type, that is.”

  Domineering? Not in bed, she isn’t. Ellis is putty in her hands in the bedroom. Crap. She knows she’s brighter than a fire truck right now. And Kate’s looking at her like she’s grown a second head. She swallows the dry lump in her throat. “What?”

  “Aha! You think she’s hot, don’t you?”

  “Come on, this isn’t high school.”

  “No, but sometimes it’s like General Hospital.” Kate smiles around the rim of her cup. “Your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell anyone you think Dragon Lady’s attractive.”

  Amy rolls her eyes and tries to think of a sassy retort when Erin saunters in. “Oh-oh. Am I interrupting anything?” Erin asks.

  “Not at all.” Amy plucks a small ball of string from the pocket of her lab coat and tosses it at Erin, who deftly catches it. “Nice hands. Speaking of which, the string is to practice tying some different knots. We’ve got the basic square knot, the two-hand tie, the one-hand tie, and the instrument tie. Grab a seat and I’ll show you, then you can work on them in your spare time.”

  “Cool!”

  An idea strikes Amy. She likes having Erin around because she’s upbeat, fun, sharp. She doesn’t want to spend the weekend obsessing about what Ellis will ultimately conclude about the hospital. She d
oesn’t want to spend the weekend thinking of Ellis at all, if she can help it. And then there’s Monday’s private meeting with Ellis that she’s dreading worse than a visit to the dentist. Kate doesn’t need to spend the weekend stewing about her future either. They could all use a little distraction.

  “Erin, are you free Sunday?”

  “My daughter’s spending the weekend with her grandmothers in the city, so yes, I’m free.”

  “What about you, Hendy?”

  “Yes, I’m free,” Kate chimes in, somewhat hesitantly. “Why?”

  “Let’s do something fun. I’ve got a couple of kayaks on my property I haven’t used yet this season. Hendy, bring yours over. We’ll kayak on the lake for a bit, then roast something over a backyard fire. What do you guys say?”

  Erin sits down and starts fussing with her ball of string. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “I’ll bring the beer,” Kate says.

  A fourth would be fun, and Amy’s mind wanders to Ellis. Ellis in a bikini top, paddling with sweat beading down her arms, her back. Ellis affectionately bumping shoulders with Amy as a campfire crackles and dances before them. Ellis looking at her with eyes reflecting the glow of the firelight. Stop, she tells herself. Stop it right now. Ellis is a memory. A sweet one, but a memory nonetheless. And Amy is, if nothing else, a realist.

  * * *

  Ellis trudges up the stairs with yet another box from the moving van. The movers have carried in all the heavy items, but standing idle watching them lug stuff in at a snail’s pace is too much for her impatient nature. In the living room she sets down the last box, marked “books,” then stretches her back.

  “I think that’s everything, ma’am,” one of the movers says.

  She gives them each a twenty-dollar tip before they leave. Mia has been hiding out in the yard, pretending to do…well, God knows what. Fooling around with her bike, probably. The kid needs to get her butt upstairs to help unpack this mess. Ellis glances out the window and sees Mia talking over the back fence with a blond-haired, middle-thirties woman. The woman who appeared to have been the host of last weekend’s outdoor party. The party that included Abby—Amy—she corrects herself again. Huh, she thinks with the tiniest jealous streak. Mia seems to have a lot more to say to this stranger than she does to me.

  She pokes her head out the window and asks Mia to come in and help.

  “I will in a minute. Kate here wants me to help her load her kayak on her car. Says she’ll pay me ten bucks.”

  Ellis rolls her eyes exactly at the moment Kate looks up. “I’m sorry. I promise to only borrow her for a few minutes. Actually, it would probably be easier if the three of us loaded it together. Would you mind?”

  Great, like I have time for this. “Will you pay me ten bucks too?” She can’t keep the sarcasm from her voice, but this Kate woman doesn’t seem to notice.

  “How about a bottle of wine?”

  Now that’s a deal she isn’t going to refuse. “Be right there.”

  She checks her image in the window glass on her way out, knowing nothing will fix her worn-out and bedraggled look. She reties the scarf on her head that’s losing the battle of keeping her hair under control.

  As she closes in on the fence between the yards, the woman’s face changes from open and friendly to something far more guarded.

  “Oh, wait,” the woman named Kate says. “You’re the one who’s conducting the hospital review.”

  Ellis waits for her heart to stop jabbing her in the ribs. Of course. It’s a small town. Word’s gotten around, and Kate probably works at the hospital, since Amy was at her party last weekend. Ellis can’t find her voice because of the jumble of regrets bouncing around in her head. She should never have left the city. It was a mistake to think she could both live and work in this fish bowl, especially while doing something as contentious as conducting a review of the hospital. People will assume the worst. Not that she can blame them.

  As calmly as she can, Ellis introduces herself and holds out a friendly hand over the fence.

  “Kate Henderson.” Cool, clipped. Same with the handshake.

  “Ellis Hall. You, um, work at the hospital, I gather?” No sense in ignoring the obvious, especially since they’re neighbors.

  “I do,” Kate says, narrowing her eyes enough to make it obvious she doesn’t plan on being too friendly. “In the OR.”

  Okay, thinks Ellis, I can do this. I can be friendly with these folks. I’m not their enemy, after all. We’re all in this together, trying to make a more efficient and sustainable health care system. We don’t have to be on opposite sides of the fence. She grins at the fence analogy because it’s so perfect right now.

  “Something funny?” Kate asks, an edge to her voice.

  “Just thinking what a small world this is.”

  “Not a small world. Small town, though.”

  “Listen…” This isn’t Ellis’s forte, being the chatty neighbor. Usually, she doesn’t have the time, or, let’s be honest, the inclination to become friendly with her neighbors, because she’s rarely in one place for more than a year or two. But it’s different here. It’s not the big city, and it’s not a monolithic hospital where you never see the same person twice. She’s here for a few months, and she needs people other than Mia to talk to once in a while. Then there’s the added bonus of Kate knowing Amy. Not that Ellis plans to ever tell Kate about her and Amy, but maybe, through Kate, she can at least learn a little more about Amy, keep distant tabs on her. She knows Amy won’t want anything to do with her now and will resent her presence at the hospital. That part was made clear by Amy’s prickliness at the board meeting. “Since we’re going to be neighbors and all, I hope that we can leave hospital business at the hospital. I’d like that, if it’s okay with you.”

  Kate’s desire to argue or to put up a wall or whatever negative thing she might have been contemplating falls from her face and is replaced by a smile. “Help me with my kayak and we’ll call it square.”

  Ellis laughs, enjoying this unexpected banter. “You mean there’s no more wine in it for me?”

  “Well, we’ll have to see how well you do first.”

  * * *

  It takes all of about three minutes before Kate spills the beans to Amy and Erin about Ellis Hall being her new neighbor.

  “You know,” Kate says as they carry the kayaks down to the shore, “I was ready to hate her. More than ready. But I might have changed my mind a little. She doesn’t seem so bad.”

  Amy loves her property along the lake. It’s about an acre, with a lovely four-bedroom Craftsman style home built in the 1920s. While she isn’t home as much as she’d like to be, it’s her little slice of heaven when she is. “So you spoke to her for five minutes and now you’ve tamed Dragon Lady?” Kate isn’t usually so quick to change her mind about people. She likes to pride herself on her ability to judge others’ character. A handshake, a good look in the eye is all you need, she likes to say. I can have a little fun with this, Amy thinks.

  “Well,” Kate says, slipping on her life jacket. “She is rather nice to look at.”

  “Ah, so you’re ready to step a foot into the dating pool now, are you?”

  Kate’s eyes widen in panic. “I never said that. And certainly not with her.”

  “Not your type?” Erin says, and Amy catches the lilt of hope in her voice.

  “I’ve got her pegged as the domineering type.” Kate shrugs. “Like, you know, all uptight in bed. Probably has a timer on the nightstand or something. And a copy of that book about lesbian sex positions. If she’s even a lesbian.”

  Amy almost laughs out loud, because of course Ellis is a lesbian, she’s anything but uptight in bed, and there’s certainly no timer or a book of instructions. But she’s not about to correct her friend. “Maybe you can be the nosy neighbor and have her over for tea and get the inside scoop on how she’s going to decimate our hospital.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  Amy slides her boat int
o the water, straddling it, then carefully folds her legs in and sits down. Erin deftly does the same, but Kate’s boat wobbles perilously, until finally she tumbles sideways, ending up thigh deep in the water.

  “Dammit! I swear you have to be a fucking gymnast to get into these things.”

  Amy laughs while Erin plays rescuer, leaping out of her boat to help Kate remount hers. The chivalry makes Amy smile, and she hopes her best friend notices it too. But Kate’s a stubborn one, and she has a feeling that if Erin wants to make her intentions clear, she’ll pretty much have to throw herself at Kate. While naked and holding a bouquet of flowers.

  Everyone’s back in their boats, paddling slowly, when Kate says, “Maybe she won’t recommend they take a sledgehammer to the hospital after all. Maybe it’ll be some small cuts. Things we won’t even notice.”

  “Yeah,” Amy hisses. “Like getting rid of obstetrics? That small enough for you?” Losing the birthing suite would require patients to travel nearly an hour to a larger hospital in Windsor to give birth. Furthermore, if the hospital does cut obstetrics, the local gynecologists/obstetricians will pack up and leave, because delivering babies is their bread and butter, and they’ll follow the money. “Two days ago you were all doom and gloom. Five minutes of chatting with Ellis Hall and you’re suddenly a new woman?”

  Kate sticks her tongue out at Amy. “I know. And I’ll be the first one to run Ellis Hall out of town if she suggests major cuts. But I think maybe I’ll, you know, reserve judgment a little while longer.”