Fifteen

 

The nursing students' last day dawned with audible relief from some of the staff, though I admit some of the male staff and patients were looking happier lately. Perhaps I was imagining it.

To celebrate, the cafeteria announced that there would be cake after lunch, so it was unusually full on my lunch break. Aidan still managed to find me in the crush, sitting across from me with a plate of curry and rice that tasted nothing like the spicy dishes that passed for curry back home.

Little Lin sauntered past and I noticed Aidan's eyes following her. I bit back a smile as I wondered if he'd used her expensive services, too.

As if he'd read my thoughts, Aidan leaned over and hissed, "You see the nursing student with the dark hair?"

I nodded once, without looking at Lin. I kept my eyes on the intern instead. I wanted to know whether my surmise was correct.

"She...she offered to spend the night with me. At my house. She...said it would only cost me fifty dollars for the whole night!" He kept his voice low, looking shocked.

I thought of all the other men she'd shagged and how much she'd charged them. "She must like you, then," I replied.

"Like me?" Aidan's whisper sounded almost hysterical. "She wanted me to pay for sex like she was a prostitute!"

"I heard she charged someone three hundred dollars for less than an hour," I whispered back. "She must have liked you, to offer you a whole night for much less."

His eyes widened as he stared at me. "She offered her...services to you, too?"

I shook my head, smiling slightly. "No."

Lin was deep in conversation with her supervisor, the picture of innocent bewilderment. The supervisor's red face looked furious. The two women hurried past us and out of the cafeteria. "Never...in all my years of teaching nursing...unprofessional behaviour..." I heard the older woman mutter.

Aidan paled more than usual. "Do you think she's in trouble for...for..."

I nodded once, before turning to stare at him. "Why do you look so worried? Did you take her up on her offer?"

His face shifted from white to red, into a deep bottlebrush blush. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He cleared his throat and tried again, hoarsely. "I'd never...I...NO! Belinda, you know I...she..." He swallowed and it looked like he found it painful. "You're the only person I've ever invited up to the house. No one else." His eyes seemed to be trying to convey some emotional message that I couldn't decipher.

I nodded. "I remember. You invited me to come fishing and hunt the Nannup Tiger."

He looked sad. "I'd ask you over for dinner, but I can't cook very well, so we're better off going to a restaurant if you want something to eat. We could always get a pizza or something..."

"If we got a pizza from the place in town, it'd be cold by the time we made it to Elleker," I replied smoothly, standing up. My break was over, along with our awkward conversation. So he hadn't used the prostitute's services after all. "Enjoy the rest of your shift."

I headed off to do the same. Like the nursing students, my time here was coming to a close, too. I felt a tiny tinge of regret, but banished it quickly. Once my exams were over, I could return home as a qualified midwife. Everything I'd worked for, complete. What more could I ask for?