Page 59 of Plentywood
Jay got quiet, eerie looking really. “Apparently, Mark told her to set you up with the new doctor.”
“Bullshit!” I huffed, picking up a ballpoint pen and clicking the tip nonstop. “No fucking way,” I insisted.Click-click. Click. Clickety-click.“Uh-uh,” I rasped.
“That’s what I said, boss,” he agreed. “I swear on my unborn baby that she said that, actuallybelievesthat. Ever since that night two weeks ago, she’s been bugging me about the dinner invite. She insists she has to make this happen.”
I had a half dozen retorts, but none seemed kind to say to him. Jay was delivering a message from his wife. The strangeness of it wasn’t his fault. I knew Jennie. She had never displayed kookiness to me. In fact, she was soft-spoken, direct but respectful, and certainly shy. I couldn’t imagine her having this conversation with her husband.
“She speaks to Mark regularly?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
Jay shook his head. “Nope, only that once. And she says they didn’t actually speak to one another. She just received the message loud and clear.”
“Oh, I see. Just that once,” I muttered, wanting to scream in his face that his wife was a nutcase. But I couldn’t do that. Jennie Hayes was probably the most normal, sedate, calm, late twenty-something I’d ever met.
“So,” Jay began again. “The whole religious question about setting up a gay couple. Well, let’s just say that Jennie is convinced she has to do as Mark said in her vision.”
“Well, okay then,” I responded, standing up in the hope he’d leave so I could freak out alone. “Friday? And at what time?”
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
“I believe you witnessed this, Jay. I’m not sure Jennie heard or saw what she thinks she did, but I’m willing to be open to the idea.”
“Without thinking she’s crazy?
I had two problems now.One. Jay had included me in a very unusual story about his wife.Two. He probably thought that I thought his wife was crazy. Make thatthreeproblems. I’d be seeing his wife in two days, wondering what the hell she thought she’d seen or heard.
“If Mark is communicating with anyone, I’m happy he chose Jennie,” I said. “And tell your lovely wife that I look forward to seeing you both on Friday.”
Jay stepped backward toward the closed door, reaching behind his back to open it and then backed out completely. I wasn’t sure he believed me about my feelings concerning Jennie’s vision. But I wasabsolutelypositive I didn’t believe anything I’d just heard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Benedict
Icame out of an exam room and found Mrs. Howard, my very first patient when I’d arrived in Plentywood, and who used to come every Monday. I’d told her back then that her dead husband, Walter, probably wouldn’t mind if she had a life now that he was gone.
“I thought we agreed you didn’t need to be seen but every six months, Mrs. Howard.”
She held up a bag. I heard glass thudding against glass inside of it. “You said you liked pickles, doc,” she said. “Remember? So my first cukes came in and I brought you some freshly jarred pickles from my garden.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I answered. “But you’re right. I love pickles. Any chance they’re sweet pickles?”
She giggled. “Sweet. Just like you said.”
My original diagnosis that she wasn’t suffering from Alzheimer’s had been spot on. Her memory was sharper than a tack. What she’d been was lonely after her husband passed. She’d simply needed someone’s permission to start living again.
“You remembered,” I said.
“I sure did,” she confirmed, giving me a wink. “Well, off to Billy Landon’s house. He has a mole problem in his lawn. I toldhim how to get rid of ‘em, but he keeps asking me to come over and check on them.”
I’d also met Billy Landon. Like Mrs. Howard, he was also widowed. “And how many checks will this be now, young lady?”
She waved me off with her hand. A hand I noticed no longer had a wedding band on it. “Stop!” she exclaimed, heading for the door to the waiting room. She was halfway out when she glanced back toward me, cupping her mouth. “Fourth check,” she laughed, holding up four fingers.
“Thank you for the pickles, Mrs. Howard. And say hi to Billy for me,” I said. “Oh, and make sure he backs off on the salt intake.”
She gave me a thumbs up and exited. Agnes cleared her throat from her desk. “What’s up with you and all the old ladies in town?” she asked. “Pickles today. Baked bread yesterday. You getting attached to this town, doc?”
“You getting jealous, Agnes?”
“Pffft!” she declared. “I can make my own bread and pickles.” With that, she went into an exam room and to her next patient.
