“Well, he is an athlete,” she says, “but I
’ve heard athletes can be quite unruly off the field. Maura told Blair and me that she looked him up just weeks ago back on the café computer and the world wide web still painted him as quite the bad boy.”
Holly gives a little growl, complete with cat-scratch miming. “Blair danced with him near as much as I did. Little trollop. She’s so twiggy, though, and all the acne…” Holly shrugs, and I gape at her back.
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“Well I’m only speaking truth! She’s lovely on the inside, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Not for dancing…”
I’d quite like to strangle Holly.
My new…ignited feeling doesn’t leave me. Not as we wash the sore on Mr. Braun’s foot nor as we pretend to savor Mrs. Braun’s flavorless porridge. Nor when we walk back to the clinic, where we work our way through several more appointments. Holly stands as my assistant at times. Today she offered. I know why now.
When she leaves at four-thirty to “get a soak” in preparation for the night’s festivities, I drop into a crouch and rub Baby around her soft ears.
“Everything is horrid. Simply horrid,” I whisper against her fluff.
Declan never dropped by the clinic on that first day we were back. The next morning, I had planned to seek him out after I stopped at the warehouse to get a bit more washing soap. There I heard Tad Price and Weston Green discussing how they’d spent time at the bar with “Homer.” Maura laughed behind the counter, revealing she was there as well.
“Some of us were there much later than you teenieboppers,” she said, haughty. “Mr. Brenton didn’t lock the door till half past two. He’s quite enamored with our new friend, much as anyone. He had Homer signing cards.”
I left the depot with a sinking feeling, but that didn’t stop me seeking him out. I’m the fill-in for Doctor, therefore it’s my duty to check up on Declan. I found his green Land Rover parked at Mrs. White’s and later heard he’d taken an interest in her orchids. After that, he and Mayor Acton walked the village, charting a course for the new cable. I lost track of him during a house call, but someone said he’d been invited to supper with Rachel’s older sister and her husband, Steven, the village electrician.
The next day, Monday, the crew began digging trenches right at dawn and worked quite late. That was the first night Holly saw him at the bar, although I suppose he might have gone before.
Yesterday, I walked over to the digging site—they’re moving slowly along Lower Lane—and delivered some of the goodies people baked for me. I’ll never eat them all. Some of the men thanked me, but Declan scarcely looked up.
Now, having heard what Holly reported, I feel…horrid. There’s no other word. My throat aches. I feel ill at ease in my own skin.
When the phone rings, I rush over to it. I don’t feel the normal flare of dread accompanying calls that come when Doctor’s gone, because there’s dread inside my heart already.
I answer, and who is it but the man himself?
“Finley. How are you?”
“I’m quite well. How are you?”
“Head above water,” he says. “Went on a short trip, so I’ve been away the last two days. I had my mobile phone of course.”
“I didn’t call.”
“How are you faring? How is everything?” He means the patients.
“Everyone is well enough. Mr. Braun has got another foot sore. Holly helped me irrigate it.”
“Is there pus?”
“Not much at all. We caught it early, and I applied the Bacitracin.”
“Very well then.” There’s a pause in which my senses prickle. Then he says, in low tones, “What of our Homer?”
I swallow at his use of the word our. “Honestly…I don’t quite know. I asked him to the clinic for a check-up and he never dropped in.”
Static cracks between us. I imagine a line stretching over the ocean. “Wonder if he’s got something from somewhere else.”
“Something?” I ask.
“A sort of painkiller. Tell me there was nothing at your Gammy’s house.”