Good Time Doctor

Even just thinking about saying it out loud, even to my best friend in the world, makes my face turn bright red, in a way that Becca of course immediately notices and comments on. “Auntie Naomi, is it really hot in here? Did you drink wine before this?”

“What? No I didn’t drink wine, I’m driving,” I complain.

She just giggles. “Well. The only time your face turns that color is when you drink wine or when it’s hot and you’re outside in the sun,” she says.

Trust kids to call you out every damn time, I guess.

I roll my eyes as I turn up the main road away from school. There’s a shortcut up ahead, one that’ll bypass the huge intersection further up the main drag, where everyone and their toddler is already waiting in the post-school traffic to make the same hard left turn I’ll need to make to get to the flower shop. So before I get stuck in that same traffic jam, I turn left sooner, down a little one lane, one-way alley. It’s the same one I take every Tuesday and Thursday, my secret passage. It spits me out on the other end, right out in the back of the flower shop, where I can park without dealing with meters on the main road, and wait until Monica finishes closing up so we can all head home for the day.

Maybe we’ll even stop and get some ice cream. That’s what I’m thinking, that’s the dumb inanity that’s on my mind, as I make the left turn up the one-way street, when from the backseat, I hear Becca let out a startled yelp.

My eyes flash ahead, and widen as I realize what I’m seeing, too slow, too late.

This street is one way in the direction I’m currently driving. So there shouldn’t be anyone coming the other way up it. But there it is, a bright yellow SUV speeding toward me up the tiny little cobbled lane, way faster than anyone ought to be driving in this tiny little municipal town so close to a school district, anyway.

Time seems to slow. In one blink, I register the person behind the wheel: a woman, I can tell that much. Dark, dyed red hair, and tortoiseshell glasses. Unless I’m much mistaken, I recognize her, although I can’t place from where. I could have sworn I’d seen her around Becca’s school before… But was she a parent? A teacher? An aide of some sort?

Below her face I see headlights, a blinding white glare.

That’s what part of my brain is processing.

The rest is panicking, searching for a turnoff somewhere. My reflexes take over and I grab the wheel and yank it hard to the left, at the same time jamming on the brake with every ounce of strength I possess. My car skids up onto two wheels, banking so hard I nearly leave the pavement. There’s grass on the side of the alley, at least. But too late, I realize there’s something else, too.

A metal utility pole. Another blink and I register that it’s one of those Caution: Children at Play signs. Then my front end collides with it, and a huge billowing cloud of white explodes from the column of my steering wheel. In the distant background, I hear the blare of a horn, the crunch of glass and metal. Then my face collides with the air bag, and I don’t hear anything else.

5

I wake up and blink, blearily, at the lights overhead. Too bright. Too much like headlights in my face.

Headlights… My head throbs, and I close my eyes again with a groan. Headlights. Why does the thought of them make me panicky? Scared?

My memories feel like they’re made of rubber, covered in liquid. Slippery and hard to catch hold of. Every time I grasp at one, it slides out of my understanding. I open my eyes again, and this time the lights seem a little less intense.

“—coming out of it. Tell her friend.” A voice. Male. Deep and baritone. It sounds familiar, although I can’t quite place why.

I can feel myself frown. I turn my head and squint down at my body. There’s an IV in my arm, connected to some wires and a monitor next to my face. I stare at it, more confused than afraid or concerned. Why would someone put me on an IV? I’m fine.

The voice returns again. “Ms. Jordan. Can you hear me?” Still familiar, but something about it is wrong.

He knows me, I think. He shouldn’t be talking to me like this. So informal, so polite. I lick my lips, trying to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Not Ms. Jordan,” I say, but my voice is rough and dry, and it scratches my throat, makes me cough. Someone presses a glass of water to my lips, and for a moment, I pause to drink it, savoring the cool, refreshing gulps.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, softer now, closer. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

It’s a little easier to talk now that I’ve had a drink. “Call me Naomi,” I say.

“Naomi,” he repeats, and my eyes fly open at that, because all at once, I can place his voice, when he says my name like that.

Sure enough, there he is. Angel—no, not Angel, Jason, he told me his real name at last. He’s sitting next to me, and he’s peering down at me, his brow knit in obvious concern. In one hand he’s holding a glass of water, one that he must have just fed to me, I realize belatedly. For some reason, this makes me blush.

But it takes me a second to realize the more obvious reason I ought to be confused right now. Because Jason—my one-night stand, my dirty, filthy escort I found in a bathroom stall of all places, and summoned to my hotel room for a single night of unforgettable sex… He’s wearing a white lab coat right now. A lab coat with the name Dr. Robinson pinned to it on an incredibly official-looking name tag. He even has a stethoscope around his neck, though he’s not using it right now. He’s has a clipboard across his lap, which he likewise seems to have forgotten as he stares at me, assessing.

“How do you feel?” he asks again, voice still pitched low. He reaches up to feel around my temples. I wince, and he stops with a frown, and picks up the clipboard to write something on it.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. I lower my voice to a whisper. “And why are you dressed like that?” A sudden thought hits me. I remember how I met him, what he does for a living—or, for fun? I don’t know. “Is this some sort of… role play or something?”

His eyes flash back to mine, and for the first time since I awoke a few moments ago, he cracks what could almost pass for a smile. “I was going to ask how much you remember, Naomi. But I guess you at least recall last night.”

My head is still throbbing, but I try to prop myself up higher in bed. He gently yet firmly presses me back down against the hospital bed—a hospital, I realize. That’s where I am. Why? “I need to get up,” I protest.

“What you need is more rest,” he says. “Especially before we finish checking you out. There’s no physical injury that we can assess yet, but you did take a blow to the head—”

“What are you talking about?” I protest. “And why are you here? You aren’t a doctor.”

His eyebrows shoot skyward at that. “Last I checked, I passed all the boards and my residency with flying colors. But by all means, Ms. Jordan, continue to inform me who I am, since you clearly know me so well.”

“I just meant…” My face colors. “I thought that…”

His amused smirk is back. “I’ll leave you to rest a bit more, Naomi, before we start to question you about how you’re feeling. And about the accident.”

The accident? I think about that for a second. Then it hits me, all at once, with almost as much force as the airbag did in the car, and I sit bolt upright, my heart racing. The accident. The car, the one-way street, that woman I thought I recognized speeding in the wrong direction… I remember my head hitting the airbag, and— “Becca,” I gasp, barely able to breathe through the panic that seizes me then.

This time, Jason moves faster than I can. He grabs both of my shoulders, pins me still beneath him on the bed, before I can even so much as sit upright. “She’s fine, Naomi.” His hands slide down my arms when he sees my eyes latch onto him. From the calm, easy expression on his face, I know he’s telling me the truth. “She’s fine, she wasn’t injured at all, not even so much as a scratch,” he promises me. “The worst part for her was being worried about you, in fact.” He manages a grin

. “She kept demanding we let her in to see you. Her mom is out there in the waiting room practically restraining her by the waist.”

I smile, too, finally. That does sound like Becca. “Okay. As long as she’s okay.” I sink back against the bed.

“I take it you remember everything that happened before you wound up here, then? The accident?” He’s still looking at me with concern, though his voice remains even and steady. Professional.