He’d forgotten how much fear could be embedded in hope.
Shaken out of his reverie by a summons from his resident, he told himself to push the worries aside and focus on the present. After all, it was Haley who always encouraged him to expect the best, to prepare only for success and not to anticipate failure.
He was looking forward to practicing what she preached.
Haley hadn’t been involved in the initial planning, so she wasn’t sure quite how it had come about, but the weekend after Mia’s party, she found herself on a double date to the state fair with Ron, James and James’s friend, Elissa Copeland. It turned out that James had never actually been to the fair, and Ron seemed to think it was his mission to remedy that grievous situation. Ron had convinced Haley to join him in that endeavor—which hadn’t been too difficult, she admitted to herself as they climbed out of his car in the fairgrounds parking lot.
Elissa seemed nice enough, if a little too reserved. She was tall, slender, attractive, her hair expensively colored to a multitoned warm blond, her face perfectly made up. She’d dressed appropriately for the occasion—slim jeans and a thin, form-fitting orange sweater with an orange-and-brown cardigan tied around her shoulders in preparation for the after-sundown temperature drop. She and James made a striking couple, with him being so dark and broodingly handsome.
Ron wore faded jeans with a gray medical school sweatshirt. Haley, too, had donned jeans, along with a red hoodie with red-and-white striped sleeves. She’d thought she looked sort of cute and sporty when she’d left the house; seeing Elissa made her feel just a little grubby. She pushed that feeling aside with rueful self-reproach, reminding herself that this wasn’t a fashion competition. Especially since a predominant pattern seen at the fair was camo, and many of the people in attendance were teenagers dressed in all sorts of odd and attention-begging garb.
Ron took her hand as they joined the crowd streaming in through the gates of the fairgrounds. He was keeping them from becoming separated, true, but he also seemed to enjoy the contact. He wasn’t even pretending tonight that they were still merely friends.
She wasn’t sure if he’d said anything to James about the change in their relationship. She and Ron had been lovers only for a week. It was still too new for her to be casual about it, or comfortable sharing the news with everyone else. She hadn’t yet mentioned the change to her mom or even her own best friend, Anne. She’d been trying to decide exactly how to announce that her relationship with Ron had gone to a new level, but no one should expect wedding bells anytime in the future.
It was very much the same sort of relationship she’d had with Kris. Light. Fun. Nothing serious. It was just a little trickier this time. Kris hadn’t been part of her close circle of friends, so his absence was hardly noticeable in her life.
She supposed her study group was already drifting onto different paths as they moved through the latter half of medical school, and they would go their own ways after graduation, but she hated to think she couldn’t remain friends with all of them, wherever their careers took them. She couldn’t bear to think of a future without Ron in it, though she wanted to believe that was only a sign of how much she valued his friendship.
Trying to hear each other speak over the cacophony of loud music, amplified game barkers, screaming rides and shrieking children, the two couples wandered down the fairway, taking in the sights. The sun was just setting, and the colorful lights on the fairgrounds glared against the purple sky. The musky scent of the surrounding animal barns blended with the aromas of popped corn and grilled turkey legs and fried dough and beer, taking Haley straight back to her childhood. Her mouth was already beginning to water for a fatty, blatantly unhealthy meal.
“So what do y’all want?” Ron asked, pausing in the center of a grouping of concession trailers and motioning toward some of the more garish signs. “Chocolate covered bacon? Gator on a stick? Fried candy bars?”
Elissa studied the offerings with an almost visible shudder. “Seriously? People eat that stuff?”
Because they were surrounded by people eating “that stuff,” none of the others bothered to respond.
They found a food vendor operating from beneath a pavilion covering quite a few wood-slatted picnic tables, and they decided to eat there. Haley and Ron ordered Cajun chicken wings and grilled corn cobs slathered with melted butter and dusted with spicy seasoning. James and Elissa settled on cheeseburgers, though Elissa barely touched hers.
It felt good to sit for a few minutes, Haley thought with a little sigh. She’d been at the hospital at seven that morning and had barely stopped running since, getting home just in time to change for this outing.
During the meal, Haley discovered that Elissa was a pharmacy student at the medical school. Elissa and James had met in the cafeteria, and had dated a couple of times. They seemed to get along well, but Haley saw no real chemistry between them. James was as polite and considerate with Elissa as he was with everyone else. She treated him pretty much the same way, though Haley suspected that Elissa was a bit more invested in him. But Haley would freely admit that she couldn’t even guess what James was looking for in a mate.
“How long have the two of you been dating?” Elissa asked Haley, nodding toward Ron as she spoke. James looked as though he wouldn’t mind hearing the answer to that question, himself.
“Not long,” Haley said, glancing at Ron before looking back at the other woman. “But we’ve been friends for quite a while. How’s your burger?”
“Greasy.”
James wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “Mine’s pretty good.”
&
nbsp; Ron grinned. “Grease is the best part of fair food, right, James?”
James didn’t look quite convinced, but he nodded obligingly.
Elissa wasn’t ready to have her conversational topic derailed. “It’s sort of tricky dating a classmate, isn’t it?”
Wiping her fingers, Haley began to gather her trash to carry to the nearest receptacle. “No, not really. We’re equals. It isn’t like one of us is a resident or attending and the other a student, or any other sticky balance of power issue.”
“No, I just meant I’ve heard it’s sometimes difficult for couples to get residencies in the same place. Especially if they’re particularly exclusive residencies. Which means both having to settle for alternate choices.”
Haley’s heart gave a hard thump, though she kept her smile bland. “Oh, we’re a long way from choosing residencies. We still have to get through the rest of our peds rotation.”
And she had no intention of talking about her future—with or without Ron—with Elissa tonight. Standing, she tossed her trash into the receptacle and looked at Ron. “Want to ride the Ferris wheel?”
He rose with a laugh, though his eyes were hard to read when they swept her face. “I’ll ride the Ferris wheel if you’ll ride the pirate ship with me.”