Thursday Afternoons

by Tracey Richardson

  “We’ve been getting to know your daughter,” Amy’s mom, Rose, says. Ellis doesn’t correct her on calling Mia her daughter. “And she’s a lovely young woman.”

  She is? Oh, right, she is. At least, this new Mia certainly is. “She is. I’m very proud of her.”

  Mia shrinks at the compliment, which secretly pleases Ellis.

  “What do you think,” Rose says, “of Mia coming to our place one afternoon a week?”

  “I think it’s a great idea, as long as Mia agrees.”

  “I’m going to get twenty-five bucks an hour,” Mia says with excitement. “I’ve never made that much money before. Not even doing Kate’s lawn.”

  “Ah, an entrepreneur,” Amy’s dad, William, says. “Nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to go where the money is, go into orthopedics. Like Amy here.”

  Amy discreetly rolls her eyes. “Forget medicine, Mia. Go into business, like Ellis, if you want to go where the real money is. Right, Ellis?”

  Ellis playfully narrows her eyes at Amy. “I’m not the one driving the Audi Q5.”

  Amy laughs. “Guilty as charged.”

  Natalie thanks Mia for agreeing to help her parents. “I wish my own kids…well…never mind.” She turns to Ellis and begins to fangirl. “Gosh, has anyone ever told you you’re a dead ringer for Rayna James on the show Nashville? You could be, like, her stunt double or something. It’s uncanny.”

  “I’ve heard that a time or two, but I don’t watch much television, I’m afraid.”

  “So you’ve known my sister awhile, then?”

  With her eyes, Ellis sends out an SOS to Amy, but they’re saved by the racket Kate and Erin are making as they haul out a big birthday cake onto the patio, one with about a million candles on it. The crowd joins in on serenading Amy, who enlists Eliana to help her blow out the candles before they drip all over the frosting.

  “Thank you, everyone.” Amy can’t escape giving a little speech, because the crowd starts chanting, “Speech, speech,” and they’re not letting her off the hook. “All right, all right, I get the hint. Wow, you guys. You really did manage to surprise me, especially since I was hoping nobody noticed I was turning forty today. I kind of figured I’d drink away my sorrows over hitting the big four-oh, so thank you for not letting me do that alone.” She glances at her watch for effect. “Although there is still time for that. Okay, everybody, out!”

  They all laugh, and Amy raises her palms to show she’s kidding. “Seriously, thank you. And let’s not wait for somebody’s birthday again to do this. Kate? You outdid yourself, my friend, so thank you. All of you made today very special.” Her eyes flick to Ellis for an instant, and the butterflies fire up again in Ellis’s stomach. There’s no mistaking the heat in that look. Ellis has seen it many times before when they were alone together, but never in a crowd. This is definitely new. And sort of wonderful.

  “Mia,” Ellis says, “why don’t you take Eliana to our place? I’m sure it’s almost her bedtime.” The sun is quickly setting and the child has begun yawning now that the excitement of the party is drawing to a close. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  “All right.” Mia takes Eliana by the hand and they wander off to say their goodbyes and to collect Eliana’s overnight bag.

  Amy steps up to Ellis, keeping a respectable distance between them. “That’s really nice of you to take Eliana for the night. I know Kate and Erin really appreciate it.”

  “Hey, I know what it’s like to crave some alone time with your lover. God, do I ever.” She moans so quietly, she doesn’t think Amy hears her until Amy grins slyly at her, steps a little closer. Ellis can feel the warmth radiating off her skin.

  “Since you’re helping babysit, I guess our car-ride date for tonight is out of the question.”

  “Dammit, I’m sorry.”

  “Walk you home instead?”

  “Yes, please. Though it’s only around the corner.”

  “Take the long way?”

  “How did you get so good at reading my mind?”

  Amy laughs, dares to give Ellis’s wrist a quick squeeze. “Let me make sure my parents get into a cab and I need to say a few goodbyes first.”

  “Of course.”

  Ellis watches Amy depart, her mind imagining some ingenious ways of sneaking her into the house later. Into her bedroom, to be exact. Then she remembers how nothing gets past Mia. As in, zero. The kid could be a professional spy.

  A walk will have to suffice.

  It’s almost dark, so Amy slips her hand into Ellis’s once they’re away from Kate’s house. If a car comes along they’ll separate in a hurry. All this sneaking around, it reminds Amy of her first girlfriend, a classmate in her Grade Nine gym class who was super religious and didn’t want anyone finding out about them. “You know, it feels like we’re cheating on somebody.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry about that,” Ellis says it with such sadness that it nearly breaks Amy’s heart. “At least it’s temporary.”

  Amy doesn’t respond because she can’t. What is their future? Do they even have one? The better question is, does she want a future with Ellis? She’s not sure, because if she’s completely honest, she’s still holding back the biggest part of herself—her heart. Because even if she takes Ellis’s job out of the equation, she can’t be sure her heart knows how to love again, to trust again. There’s no question it can’t endure another heartbreak. But what if the old excuses are just that, old? And worthless? What is she really afraid of?

  “Amy? How come you never talk about her?”

  The question comes as a shock. Amy knows damned well who Ellis is talking about, but she makes her spell it out. “What? Who?”

  “The woman who so badly hurt you.”

  “How do you know there’s a woman who’s hurt me?”

  Ellis slows their pace so she can look into Amy’s eyes. “Because it’s there. In your eyes. A shadow of something devastating. Your heart has a ten-pound weight attached to it.”

  Amy shrugs because she doesn’t want to deal with this, not now, but she can’t help but be impressed by Ellis’s astuteness. What else has she figured out about her? “Most of us have a past relationship that didn’t end particularly well. Yourself included. Right? I’m no different. It was a long time ago.”

  Ellis has that tenacious look in her eyes, the one that says she’ll keep pestering her about Lisa until she gets an answer. And she’s right to want to know. Amy might be stubborn but she’s not stupid. She knows she will need to talk about Lisa if things go further with Ellis, but it’s not going to be tonight. She clutches Ellis’s hand tighter and twirls her around until her back is up against a thick tree trunk. She brushes her lips against Ellis’s mouth, lingers there until Ellis responds. They kiss deeply, Amy losing herself in the citrus and mint of Ellis’s hair, in the warmth of her body pressed against her, in her lips that are so soft and perfectly moist. She drops a kiss onto Ellis’s bare shoulder, then another and another. If her body and her heart ever truly align over this woman, Amy knows she’ll be a goner.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone might see us?” Ellis’s breath is ragged, her chest beginning to heave slightly, but the hungry look in her eyes says she cares only about more kisses.

  “Not really. Some things are more important.”

  They kiss again, and Amy longs to run her finger the length of Ellis’s thigh. The little PDA was supposed to be a diversionary tactic to keep Ellis from asking questions, but damn, she’s so turned on! What she really wants to do is unzip Ellis’s shorts, right here against the tree in the murky light, and fuck her senseless with her fingers.

  “Wait.” Ellis pulls away. Clearly she’s read Amy’s mind. “We can’t, not here.”

  “I know. Damn it, I want you so badly.”

  “I want you too. But I want more of you than…sex, Amy.”

  “I know.” It sucks, sneaking around for a few quick feels and kisses that leave them both wanting more. It’s not enough, s
ame as their Thursday afternoons in the hotel weren’t enough either. It took only a couple of afternoons with Ellis in that hotel room before Amy could think of nothing else, no one else, but Ellis. Her mistake was in thinking that she could handle wanting more. Actually, her mistake was failing to consider how complicated things would become for them. She’d been too busy enjoying the ride to wonder about its destination.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Amy says. “Let’s have a real dinner date.” She needs more than a few cheap thrills up against a tree on a dark street if she’s ever going to know if her heart is strong enough for this.

  “How?”

  “Do you have an evening free next week? I mean, one where Mia’s busy doing her own thing?”

  “Yes, I think Tuesday night she’ll be at Erin’s babysitting.”

  “Good. I’m free then too. Meet me at that Becker Street pub again. I’ll get there first. Walk in like it’s a last minute decision, like you’re there to eat alone, but then you see me and we’re simply two…” Amy’s tongue gets twisted because what she really wants to say is lovers instead of strangers.

  “Work colleagues who happen to be at the same place for dinner?”

  “Exactly.”

  Ellis’s agreeable smile is all the answer Amy needs.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Like clockwork, Amy sits alone at a table exactly when she said she’d be there. That Amy is so reliable, so responsible, edges Ellis’s respect for her up a few more notches. She’s a keeper, she truly is, but there’s so much distance yet between whatever this tepid dance is they’re doing now and being a real couple. They’re a long way from having anything worth counting on. So much so that it makes Ellis’s heart sink. Alone at night with her glass of wine, it’s too easy to tell herself Amy will never be hers.

  “Good evening, Dr. Spencer. Mind if I join you?” She says it loudly in case anyone is eavesdropping.

  Amy smiles up at her, leaps to her feet like a gentlewoman until Ellis sits. “Absolutely. No sense in both of us eating alone. Nice to see you again, Ms. Hall.”

  “By the way.” Ellis sits down, lowers her voice so only Amy can hear. “I meant to tell you, your parents are lovely. I was so glad to meet them at Kate’s. Mia’s really looking forward to—”

  “Her name was Lisa.”

  “Oh.”

  “We met in first year at med school and became inseparable. McMaster U. She was fun. Smart. Pretty.” The look on Amy’s face is not fond or wistful, but pained. “We moved in together within six months. We were never apart. She wanted to go into gynecology.”

  “Okay.” Ellis doesn’t want to spook Amy; she wants her to continue. “What happened?”

  Amy gives her head a little shake, as though she’s swamped by memories too painful to share. It’s another minute before she speaks. “She…began to fall apart by second year. From the pressure. She fell behind in her studies. Couldn’t sleep, didn’t eat properly, eventually wouldn’t leave the apartment. Began self-medicating with drugs and alcohol because she was afraid that if she sought help, she’d be kicked out of her studies. She had to drop out anyway by the end of third year.”

  “Oh no. You tried to save her, didn’t you?” Of course Amy did, it’s her nature.

  She only nods, but the heaviness in her brow makes Ellis’s stomach tighten into a hard knot. It’s easy to imagine Amy trying to help her girlfriend study, bringing her notes from classes, desperately urging her to seek help, maybe even lining up appointments for her. Because those are exactly the things Amy would do for someone in need. “I couldn’t help her, ultimately. It was hell.” She chokes out the last bit.

  Neither woman speaks for a while, and their server interprets the silence as a good time to approach. They order a giant, fully loaded pizza to share along with a glass of red wine each, which Ellis hopes is a mood lifter. Seeing Amy so vulnerable is breaking Ellis’s heart.

  “I almost didn’t survive it.”

  So it was worse than Ellis imagined. “But you did. You saved yourself. You did the right thing.”

  Amy shrugs one shoulder. “I know. But…”

  You’re too good for your own good, Ellis thinks. “No, Amy. You saved yourself instead of becoming a second casualty. It was the only reasonable choice you were left with. How long were you together?”

  “Almost five years.”

  “Almost five years? Of hell?”

  “Not all five years were hell. Just the last three and a half. I don’t take commitments lightly.”

  Was that a dig at her own past, at walking out on Nancy and Mia? She searches Amy’s face for evidence of an intentional insult but can find none. “No, I can see that you don’t. But I think it’s more about your habit of putting other peoples’ needs ahead of your own.” Ellis smiles to soften her judgment. “A wild guess on my part.”

  “I’ve been accused of it before.” Amy smiles too for the first time since Ellis sat down.

  “So…what happened to Lisa?”

  “Her parents took her back to Vancouver. I heard she was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but we haven’t kept in touch. I have no idea how she’s doing. I mean, I hope she’s doing well, but I…can’t be friends with her. I can’t go back to being emotionally invested in how she’s doing.”

  “I understand. And so your experience with Lisa has left you…”—relationship-phobic comes to mind—“hesitant to get too serious with anyone again?”

  “I guess I’m not much of a mystery, am I?”

  “Nope. So no serious girlfriends since?”

  “Nothing past three or four dates.” Amy shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

  Ellis can relate. After Nancy, she stayed away from serious entanglements because, for a long time, she worried she would break someone’s heart again. But she’s not the person she was in her late twenties and early thirties, and neither is Amy. She feels she’s speaking for her own benefit as much as Amy’s, because they could both use a little pep talk. “You’re not that person anymore. You’re strong, you’re smart, you’re so good in here.” She taps the center of her chest. “It would be a real loss for you and for…the woman in your future…if you forever close yourself off because of your past. Don’t let it define your future, Amy. Don’t let yourself keep being a victim.”

  Amy’s gaze sharpens. “Is that what you think I am? A victim?”

  “I think you have been a victim, yes. But now I think you let your feelings of guilt, of fear, paralyze you from taking a chance again. You’re victimizing yourself. You won’t allow yourself to be happy because somehow you think you don’t deserve it. Or else you’re an eternal pessimist and think nothing will ever work out for you.”

  Amy looks like she’s going to bite Ellis’s head off, but then her shoulders relax and her anger vanishes. “I did ask, didn’t I?”

  Ellis badly wants to reach out and hold Amy’s hand; she practically has to sit on her hands so that she won’t. “I meant it when I said I want to be your friend. I’m not trying to hurt you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be okay. And not just because I want to date you, but because you deserve to be happy. You deserve to be okay, Amy.”

  Amy looks away, like she’s weighing something in her mind. When her eyes drift back to Ellis’s, it’s as though a storm has been swept away. “Thank you.”

  “You’re a survivor, Amy. You survived.”

  Amy tucks into the pizza, the weight that’s been removed from her shoulders leaving her suddenly famished. We’re all survivors of something, she supposes. Oh, she’s not naïve enough to think she’ll never be completely out from under the specter of Lisa, from those years of being in the trenches of mental illness with her. There are still scars, but the word survivor resonates in her mind. She pulls her phone from her back pocket, apologizes to Ellis, types for a few seconds.

  “Survivor,” she says, quoting an online dictionary. “A person who continues to live, especially after a dangerous event.” She says the word live li
ke it’s an epiphany. Which it sort of is. Kate, during many of their mutual pep talks, has been telling her to get on with her life, but Amy never had a reason to until Ellis walked into it. Ellis makes her want to live. Ellis makes her want to jump on the carousel instead of standing there watching it go around and around.

  “My point exactly.” A smug smile tugs on Ellis’s lips, but she’s being joyful, not rubbing it in. “You’re alive, and that means living life, not just enduring it.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to be in a relationship without waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Which is exactly why this off-and-on, sort-of-but-not-sort-of-dating Ellis thing is ripping her in two. But she doesn’t want to be sad anymore. She wants to laugh with Ellis. She wants to feel normal, whatever that is. “And do you have some ideas on how I might enjoy my life more fully?”

  “Oh, I most certainly do.”

  A young woman, late teens or early twenties, shyly approaches their table. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. Dr. Spencer? I just want to thank you for everything you did for my mom last winter.”

  Amy recognizes the girl but can’t remember her name or the patient she’s talking about.

  “Sorry,” the young woman says, including Ellis when she casts her eyes around their table. “Emergency appendectomy. Martha Thompson.”

  “Right!” The woman’s appendix had burst on the operating table. Her outcome would have been much worse had her surgery been delayed even a few more minutes. She was one of the redacted cases on the files she’d prepared for Ellis. “How’s she doing?”

  “Fantastic. Back to golfing almost every day, thanks to you. She’s very lucky. I mean, we’re very lucky to have you, Dr. Spencer.”

  “Thank you, er…?”

  “Autumn Thompson.”

  “Autumn, I’m so glad she’s doing well. Thanks for letting me know.”