“Kevin,” Petra said, “we need to talk about boundaries.”
Kevin gave his snort, which Petra took as assent.
“I let people talk on their cellphones in the office because, let’s face it, you have to wait a long time in here with nothing to do. But I think maybe some of the newer patients don’t love it when you comment on their conversations.”
Kevin nodded.
“So help me out, Kevin. I need patients. Just try not to say anything much.”
“But I can still listen.”
“Yes, you can still listen.”
Spring-like weather, and subsequent pollen counts, had brought steady dribbles of new patients to the office. Joanie was now installed behind the desk full-time, and she had moved on to the oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates. Petra considered this a vote of confidence in the future of the practice. Sarah’s cousin, meanwhile, had designed a new website for the practice, which included pictures of goldenrod swaying in the background, looking artistic, and to Petra’s mind, slightly ominous. They were, after all, itchy-eye and sneezy-nose inducing menaces. She wasn’t above a little stealth marketing. The designer had also included a staff page with a fuzzy picture of Petra and a simple bio, and a glossy headshot of a pensive-looking Joanie. Joanie had included information from her acting portfolio. Sarah’s cousin also suggested a blog or a Twitter feed, but Petra decided to hold off for now. The website also included forms allowing people to schedule appointments online and a page of quotable testimonials. Ian Zamora’s review was one of them. Petra did not look at that page. Five months had passed since he’d stopped coming in for immunotherapy. She had moved on.
Kevin sighed. “I can’t help it if I have a lot of questions for people.”
“What kinds of questions do you have?”
“Questions about ladies, Doctor.”
Petra looked swiftly at the outer door. Maybe coming out here to chat with Kevin had been a bad idea, but she had wanted to talk to him in his domain. Considering how much time he spent in her waiting room, it was indeed his.
Who were these ladies, anyway? Was there more than one possibility? For Kevin?
“Is there an adult who you can go to with these questions? Your dad, maybe?”
Kevin snorted, out of disgust, rather than due to respiratory distress.
“A guidance counselor? Favorite teacher? Maybe a clergyman? Godparents? Your uncles or aunts?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. She had never received the eye roll from him. She felt vaguely hurt. Still, she had a duty. “As your physician, I can always try to answer questions you might have.”
“You’re great, Doc, but see, you’re also a lady.”
Well, at least Kevin had noticed.
“That means my advice will be more accurate,” she persisted, albeit half-heartedly.
“When’s the last time you hooked up with someone, Doc?”
She sucked in a breath. Sometimes Kevin seemed utterly and dorkily clueless. Then, he’d suddenly zing her with such perception that her teeth nearly rattled. “We’re talking about you, Kevin.”
“It’s okay, I’d like to hear more about you. Maybe I can learn from your mistakes and you can benefit from my war stories. We’d give each other romantic advice.”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate, Kevin.”
“You say that a lot now, that things are inappropriate.”
“Well, that’s because I need to set professional boundaries.” Petra stood up. “Kevin, I hope you find someone to talk to about these things. I can’t reciprocate, because I am your doctor, but I’m a good listener and I’m always looking out for you.”
She ushered him into her office and checked his welts. He pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt down again before she could give him some cream. The shirt was too big for him and the material flapped around him like a pair of wings. He looked like a sad condor. “Thanks, Dr. Lale,” he mumbled, jamming his hat on his head. “You know,” he said, “you could always put a TV in the waiting room. That would distract me a lot.”
He clattered out.
Petra sighed and updated Kevin’s record. She called on her inner Hippocrates to tell her that she had handled Kevin correctly, but received little consolation from his soothing murmur.
She checked the clock. She was overdue for a phone call with her mom. She held her head and dialed slowly. Lisa answered on the first ring. “How’s business?”
“You sound chipper,” Petra said. “What’s up? Any distant relatives dying or on their deathbeds? Neighbors mistreating their animals? Sisters of mine cocking up in school?”
A pause. “Petra, you sound a little mean lately.”
“Maybe today I just sound the way I usually feel, Mom.”
“What’s wrong? Is it that practice of yours? You’re going under, aren’t you? Should I call Uncle Jeremy?”
“It’s fine. Birch and alder allergy season is beginning. You should go and hug a tree for me.”
Her mother wasn’t deterred. “It isn’t some boy is it?”
“It is definitely not a man. Remember Lisa Lale’s number one edict from on high? Men are not to be trusted to make a woman happy.”
“I have never said that.”
“I don’t have my Portable Lisa Lale with me, so it’s not an exact quotation, but I think I’m familiar with a number of variations on this theme.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have ever said anything like that.”
Uh-oh. Petra could only remember hearing that tone a few times in her life. “Mom, do you have something to tell me?”
A pause.
“I’ve started seeing someone. Actually, I didn’t want to tell you, because I wasn’t sure how it was going. We started dating almost six months ago.”
Petra closed her eyes.
“He’s a psychiatrist. Of course, it’s still early in the relationship. I don’t know how he feels about me yet. I’m no spring chicken, you know,” she said with an attempt at a light laugh. “I’m trying to be realistic. After all, we’ve both been through divorces, although his ex-wife sounds like a truly selfish person. She left him with an elderly dog who had to be put down and the closets haven’t been cleaned out in years. So many pantsuits. And she told their kids he would foot the bills for their phones.”
Petra murmured incoherently and shuffled papers on her desk. Her mother was dating? She was so confused.
“But it’s true, we’ve only been seeing each other for a short amount of time. I want to be realistic about this. We don’t agree on a lot of political issues. Israel is a big sticking point. And he seems to think that it’s okay to just throw everything in the trash: batteries, glue guns, old shirts, hairspray—”
“I don’t even want to know how you know this.”
“It’s troubling, isn’t it? But I don’t think it’s the sign of some deeper problem. He’s probably just lazy.”
At a different time, Lisa Lale would have argued that laziness was a deeper problem, Petra wanted to point out. But her mother was still talking.
“I was lonely, Petey. The hallway to my bedroom just echoes. I walk past your room and your sister’s and the doors are closed. They were always closed before, when you lived here, but now I know you two aren’t behind them. So, I went and I met a man online. I know it sounds so prurient, Petra, but it wasn’t one of those no-strings-attached things where we met for anonymous sex with paper bags over our heads—”
“Jesus, Mom!”
“I didn’t give him my last name or my phone number at first. I met him in a public place and I didn’t even let him so much as hold my hand until the end of the evening. But it felt so good just to talk with someone who was interesting and male and who was interested in me. I didn’t care if he was in it only for sex.”
“Mom.”
“Men aren’t that fussy, Petra. That’s something I did learn from marriage. Well, maybe they’ve got the right idea. Maybe I shouldn’t be so picky, either. Maybe I shouldn’t expect anything. I sound old and crazed and desperate, don’t I? I sound lonely. I swear, I never thought I’d end up like this, Petra. But sometimes, it is very hard. He has been very kind to me,” she added.
Petra finally spoke. “What’s his name?”
“It’s Jim. Jim Morrison. He showed me his driver’s license. I guess his name is actually James.”
Lisa laughed awkwardly, and so did Petra.
“Well, Mom,” Petra said, after a moment. “You snagged a rock star.” Her stomach felt sour. “I have to go now,” she added. “Just…take care of yourself, okay? And be careful that he doesn’t see your credit card statements. And your bank statements. Don’t give him your social security number.”
God, she sounded like her mother.
“Come visit,” Lisa said. “Maybe you can meet him.”
Joanie buzzed to tell her that her next patient had arrived. The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasantly busy way, but as Petra cleared papers off her desk and pulled out her bags to go grocery shopping, she felt unsettled.
Her mother had her nascent, imperfect relationship. Kevin had a few ladies he was eying. She didn’t have anyone to look forward to. She was lonely.
As she locked the office, she traced her fingers along the name stenciled in the door. Petra Lale, MD. Even outside the office doors, she would not be allowed to forget what she was, she realized with sudden anger. But what was she if she were not a physician? She had taken pride in her profession, in the fact that she healed people. She couldn’t dance. She was a lousy dresser. She couldn’t make small talk. At this one thing, this one important thing, she had been good, and she was grateful that she was good at it.
Until she met Ian Zamora.
As Kevin noted, she was also a lady. Unfortunately, her female parts and her doctor parts had fought. And now she was lonely. Beyond that, she was also possibly an ethically compromised person. After all, she had drooled over a patient who was giving her free food. If he thought she’d been harassing him, he could have had her license suspended.
Despite all of this, she still did think of him. She dreamed of his hand reaching for hers across the table of a restaurant. She wondered what he looked like without his glasses, what his hair looked like first thing in the morning. She wondered how his legs would feel against hers. She could almost imagine his warm rapid pulse, his mouth, a leisurely tongue. In dreams, he tasted like bourbon and cream.
She was allowed to dream about him, wasn’t she?
In the grocery store, she leaned her forehead against the cool door of the frozen food section. Originally, she had planned to eat lima beans, her version of comfort food, and watch Nova. But now, that sounded pathetic.
Petra pulled herself upright. Nothing had happened, after all. She hadn’t compromised herself with a patient. She hadn’t lost her license. Her practice hadn’t gone under. She had only hurt her heart, just a little. Her friends were awesome. She was going to be fine.
She put the lima beans back.
There was only one thing to do on a night like this. She dialed Sarah.
• • •
Ian fiddled with his tie. It was unlike him to be nervous, but on this evening, his life was about to change. He scrutinized himself in the mirror, then patted his neck again. No one would be looking at him, anyway.
The secret was to treat it like any other party, he thought. Never mind that it was a gathering of people who mattered to him, never mind that taking this step could ruin him. Stop being such a pessimist, he told himself. This is a happy occasion.
He could hear his staff rushing past his office getting ready for the big night. He pulled out his phone and checked his lists again. Flowers, delivered. Photographer, already snapping away.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Gerry said, wandering in.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working on the food?”
“This is Marcia’s night to shine. I’m supposed to look benevolent, yet sexy.” He struck a pose with his hand on his new goatee. “How’s that?”
“Do you think we’ll have enough of the Willamette Valley Pinot tonight?”
“Not the way I’ve been drinking it. You should try some.”
Ian started to make his way up the stairs. Gerry followed.
“It’s just friends, family, loved ones, and food bloggers,” Gerry said. “They’re all just people who adore us—or want to see us fail miserably. Some days I’m not sure which.”
They strode past the kitchen and opened the doors. A roar greeted them.
Stream was open.
For the last five months, Ian had worked almost nonstop. Whenever life kicked him in the gut, this is what he did. This time, he’d been given a one-two punch. As a result, Stream was born.
He had gone to Gerry with the idea for a bar that served local wines and beer. The place would have a menu of mostly small plates. Better still, a space opened up a few doors down from Field. They’d acquired licenses and building permits through a combination of charm, bribery, browbeating, and persistence. They hired a chef and developed a menu. Ian recruited some serious wine and beer geeks to man the bar and sling drinks. They bricked. They installed wainscoting. They fired two contractors. At some point, they stopped speaking to each other over the expense of copper pipes and fittings. But Gerry was still in charge of the kitchen at Field, and he couldn’t be over at the new space all the time, so Ian put in even more hours. He started spending the night in his office again. He sacked one last contractor and took on the final renovations himself while juggling the paperwork, and the day-to-day operations of Field. Near the end of it all, he was ready to get down on his knees to blow on the newly poured concrete floor if it would have made it dry faster. The night before the soft open, he stayed up until dawn polishing the pewter on the old light fixtures they’d bought from a firehouse. He was on his own strict deadline. After all, he didn’t have to answer to anyone about his time.
He didn’t let himself stop to think because whenever he let himself be idle for a moment, his mind careened immediately toward Petra Lale. That night when she came to Field, he had almost lunged across the table to eat her for dessert. She said, I’d almost think you were trying to seduce me, and he had realized that that was exactly what he had been doing. He had been staring at her mouth, encouraging her to stroke the silverware with her tongue. He would’ve sucked on the pudding smeared over her ascetic lips. He would have taken her in front of everyone at his restaurant.
He’d been creepy.
For a moment, he’d convinced himself that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. He’d seen the pink of her cheeks and the widening of those beautiful eyes. He canceled his appointment for that week, thinking of how he could find a way to ask her out away from her office. And then she’d sent the letter. Dear Ian Zamora, it said. This is to inform you that I can no longer function as your physician. As you might be aware, you failed to reschedule your last two immunotherapy appointments…
It went on to say that she would continue to provide emergency care for thirty days and recommended that he find another physician. Her signature, in bright blue ink, looked a little smudged. The small disorder on a pristine, impersonal letter was so Petra, and for some reason it hurt something inside him.
He had really fucked up a lot of things that night she had visited Field. Maybe she had flirted with him a little bit. Maybe she had even found out more about his personal life than he wanted anyone to know. She had distanced herself even before that night. She stayed professional and tried her best to be a good doctor. He knew vaguely that there were rules against dating patients. Even in the butterscotch-induced haze, he sensed that she held herself back, as if she were telling herself that she should not respond. But he had spooked her enough to send him away even though she needed patients. She could not have gotten rid of him without struggling with her decision. He had been fired as a patient because his doctor had noticed that he had practically gotten a hard-on watching her eat dessert.
And yet, five months later, he still thought of the brightness of her face, her slim shoulders and legs, and the laugh that seemed bigger than she was. He enjoyed his time with her, this despite the fact that he almost never left her without bleeding. He missed the pleasure of her hand sliding across his skin. He missed her breath on his shoulder. He sometimes thought about her fingers massaging cream into his arm.
So he’d thrown himself into his work once again. He’d given himself even more to do. Now that Stream was open, he was afraid that he would have to go back to hating himself.
The bar’s opening crowd pushed around him. He put on a lazy grin and shook hands. He declined wine and set about talking to his guests. Wait staff, bearing trays of tiny lamb chops and shrimp chips and hamachi, passed by. He grabbed a tray himself and pressed food and drink on people. He fielded compliments about the exposed copper pipes. Someone spilled a drink and he wiped it up unobtrusively. Despite the fact that he was on alert and too warm, he managed to feel proud about the floor. He may have talked a little bit too long and enthusiastically about the beauties of poured concrete.
Gerry was off in a dark corner, talking to a petite brunette. He was no help at all. Lilah, at least, was moving around the room smiling, pressing kisses on cheeks, and directing the wait staff. He had chosen well, elevating her to manager of Stream. Plus, it got her out of Gerry’s orbit.
By most standards, the night would have to be deemed a reasonable success. The team behind the bar seemed solid. No brawls had erupted. No one seemed plastered. The crab cakes had been a little dry; they probably would not make it onto the menu. Staff had been slow picking up dirty glasses, but everyone was drinking quickly tonight. By the time they really opened, they’d have a few things hammered out. He pecked out a stream of reminders on his iPhone.
He was about to slip into the kitchen, when he cast one last glance around the room. Under the sconces near the door, he saw her. Her hair burned so bright under the lamplight that he could feel the warmth of it reach his chest.
Petra.
He heard a crash.