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SHELDON STOOD AT THE reception counter. Even in her scrubs, her muscular frame made its presence known. It called to me like a siren. I tried to look away, but she was like a vortex, and I was in danger of being sucked in.
She caught me staring. Leaning against the countertop, she heaved herself up and sat casually on its edge, her legs swinging back and forth like a teenage girl’s.
“What’re you staring at?” she asked.
“I was remembering my mother.”
She tilted her head and then she asked, “What? I remind you of your mother? That’s weird.”
I smiled and said, “No. Nothing like that. She died recently. And I was just thinking that when I was a kid, my mom was beautiful. I used to beat up the kids at school because they said things about her.”
She looked perplexed. Strands of blond hair from her ponytail fell across her left shoulder. “I don’t understand what that has to do with you staring at me.”
“I was thinking that I would hate it if you were mine.”
Her smile diminished. She asked, “What?”
I said, “I’d hate for you to be mine. Like my girl.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of all the fights, I’d get in over you.”
She smiled wider.
I was serious. It wasn’t a line. I meant it. I had just met Sheldon, and already I was fighting over her. I said, “A beautiful woman can be a deadly thing. Look at Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. A beautiful woman can destroy the world.”
“I’m like Cleopatra?”
I smiled. Then I said, “Cleopatra ain’t got shit on you. That’s for damn sure.”
She paused and smiled and looked away like some far-off realization slapped her across the face.
I asked, “What is it?”
She turned back and smiled again. “I like you. I think.”
“You think?”
She said, “I mean, we just met, but you’re different. A lot different than these small-town people.”
“Aren’t you from here?”
At first, she shook her head, and then she nodded.
I was confused.
She said, “I’ve only lived here for five years. I got a special grant to open this Medical Center, and it had to be here, so I came here.”
“So where are you from?”
She hesitated for a second and said, “Here.”
“Really?”
She said, “I moved away for a while. I actually went to school abroad. Fell in with the wrong crowd and then got my medical degree and came back.”
I looked around, starting with the walls, which were full of medical posters and plaques. Boxes of unused medical supplies were piled up like there wasn’t enough room for them in a storage closet. There were boxes of feminine medical supplies and hygiene products—skin products, birth control pills, Plan B tablets, and female contraceptives.
I said, “Wow. Lots of female stuff here.”
She cracked a smile and then said, “Country women have a lot of needs.”
I looked down at the computer screens behind the counter. I guessed that this was the nurses’ station. The screensavers danced on the monitors like flickering candlelight.
A low humming came from down the hall. I saw several open doorways. All were dark. Probably examination rooms.
I said, “Looks like you’ve done pretty well for yourself.”
She stayed quiet and then said, “Wasn’t always like that. Believe me; there was a dark time in my life. But sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do in order to do good things.”
I asked, “Is that why you stay here in this small town? Something bad from your past?”
She said, “It’s hard to escape a place like this.”
I smiled and nodded. I knew something about feeling stuck in a small town in Mississippi. I had felt stuck here once.
“When I was abroad, I met a nice guy. We got to know each other, and he offered to fund a clinic and a research facility for me. He paid for my schooling, and so I’m under obligation to maintain this facility. I only have another year, and then I’ll be free and clear.”
It seemed to me like she was too old to be still obligated, but I’d heard of people who started school late or graduated late. And I knew nothing of the track that it takes for a person to become a doctor.
I asked, “What will you do then?”
She said, “I’ll move away. Maybe to one of the coasts. I like Florida. I don’t know.”
“You sound unhappy.”
She smiled and shook her head. Her eyes closed and then opened. They were an unforgettable shade of gray. I’d never seen it before.
She said, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful. I do have some moral objections.”
I asked, “With what?”
“The research side.”
“Animals?” I asked.
She looked off into the distance for a second. Her eyes stared at one of the medical posters on the wall—a poster about pregnancy.
She said, “Right. Animal testing. Gotta pay for this clinic somehow.”