sex with a woman who looked like her? A woman who could bend over and kiss her own ankles? This was a setup for sure. He just didn’t know for what.
She started chewing on her bottom lip. She was uncertain and feeling awkward. Somehow that reassured him. A setup wouldn’t look as sweetly embarrassed as she did.
“I—I, um,” she stammered. “I think that was round two. This, uh, this isn’t really who I am anymore,” she said, gesturing to her thigh-highs and stiletto heels.
He shrugged, his suspicions starting to ease. “It’s not who I am either, but damn…”
“It was good, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” With repartee like that, he was losing his Mr. Stud status fast. He scrambled to think of something to say that wasn’t lame. “Look, we don’t have to make it into something big. Just dinner. Very safe. Very casual.”
She didn’t answer. She began pulling on her skirt and he abruptly felt stupid standing there with his boxers at his ankles. So they both got busy readjusting themselves until they were facing each other fully dressed, and another awkward silence descended.
“So you’re a doctor, huh?” And again, he failed to find anything clever to say.
“Um, yeah. Well, no, not really. I mean, there’s an MD behind my name but…” She sighed and shrugged. “It’s kinda complicated.”
He gestured to where they were, stranded in a freight elevator. “I’ve got some time. How about you?”
“Uh, yeah.” She released a laugh. “Okay, personal history—the short version. I used to be this person. I used to be Mandolin Hospital, working toward management, fancy doctor with all the trimmings. Except I never made it. I had this desire to learn about stuff Western medicine didn’t encompass. In the end…” She shrugged. “I had to choose.”
“And you chose what exactly?”
“Research. The truth is that I have a fundamental need to explore, and the administration had a fundamental need to make me toe the line. I hit a moment when I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
He folded his arms across his chest and studied her face. He didn’t see any signs of outright deception, but she damn well wasn’t telling the whole story. No one upended their lives like that without something major happening.
“So you came to Chicago to do what? Let me guess, was there a guy involved?”
“Definitely no guy—I’d broken up with my last boyfriend at least a year earlier. And frankly, I’ve always been too focused on medicine for relationships. No, I came out here to visit Mary.”
When he frowned, not placing the name, she filled in the clues for him.
“She’s your plant lady. The one with rheumatoid arthritis. Those muffins are for her,” she said, pointing to the box on the floor.
“Ah. Right. Sorry.” He remembered, he just couldn’t put a face to the name.
“Anyway, she was one of my first patients a long time ago. So when I hopped into my car and started driving, I ended up on her doorstep. And then I stayed.”
“Doing what?”
“Besides filling in for her?”
She waited a moment, studying his face for something. In the end, he just raised his hands in surrender. “What am I missing?”
“I’m the fill-in plant lady. You saw me this afternoon after your lunch appointment.” As he continued to stare, her lips curled up in a smile. “I knew you didn’t recognize me. Picture me like this…” She lifted her hair into a ponytail. “Now add a shapeless sundress and hemp sandals.”
It took him a moment, but he got there. And he felt his eyes widen in shock. “Oh, my God! That’s you? The baggy plant lady I see sometimes? The one who could be pretty if she just made an effort?” He bit his tongue, then gestured to her clothing. “But then I guess you already know that you’re gorgeous when you make the effort.”
She waved off the compliment with a too-casual gesture. “I happen to think I’m beautiful even when I don’t make the effort. Beauty comes from within.”
Roger shook his head. “In your case, beauty comes from inside and outside.”
She took the compliment gracefully with a regal nod of her head, but something still didn’t sit right. He leaned forward.
“So you’ve given up medicine all together? Just to water plants?”
She shook her head. “No, no. Like I said, I do research. And before you ask, it’s not the kind of research you’re thinking of. No laboratory funded by a pharmaceutical grant. No Ph.Ds and definitely no Bunsen burner in sight.”
He nodded like he understood her. Which he didn’t. “So what kind of research?”
“New age.”
It took him a moment to process her words. And even then it was another moment beyond that. Meanwhile, she was cringing. Not obviously. Just a little, as if she expected him to start mocking her. He didn’t. During his mother’s last year, she’d explored crystals and aromatherapy and more. He never saw that it made any difference except to her. It gave her something to focus on before her death, something to explore. In many ways, he believed it gave his mother some peace before the end. In fact, when she’d finally died, he’d thought she was just meditating there for a moment.
“So you’re researching the effects of what? Crystals? Acupressure? Qigong?”
She straightened, obviously surprised that he hadn’t started laughing. “I tried those. They haven’t produced the results I’m looking for. So I’m looking at other modalities now.”
“Such as?”
“Energy healing. No needles. No herbs or crystals. Just—”
“Prayer.”
She shrugged. “Some people call it that.” She tilted her head. “You sound like you know something about it.”
“My mother spent the last year of her life on alternative healing. I got the tour along with her.”
“And?” she pressed. “You don’t seem to be dismissive of it, even though she died.”
He lifted his hands, trying to find a way to express his thoughts. “I didn’t expect a cure, and I don’t think she did either. And I have my own health issues that are making me think about alternative methods lately.” He had, in fact, spent half his afternoon searching the internet for some sort of blood pressure treatment. Something that a hospital couldn’t offer.
Her lips curved in a soft smile. “An open mind. I like that.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “You know, I’m beginning to think the universe does work in mysterious ways.” Because right here, right in front of him might be the answer to his prayers. But just in case he was wrong, he tried to think logically about it. He started tallying up facts in his brain.
His blood pressure was out of control. So out of control, he might have to quit his job.
He’d exhausted all the options that modern medicine could offer.
She was a doctor, but was serious about alternative methods and sounded like she took a scientific approach.
He needed to find a cure. Maybe she had the answer.
“So,” he said, feigning casualness, “find any therapies that work?”
She nodded, the most confident movement she’d made during the entire discussion. “I think so, yes.”
“Okay then,” he said, coming to a quick decision. “I’m game. Let’s do it.”
She blinked, obviously not following him. He