Good Time Doctor

She rests a hand on his forearm briefly with a seductive smirk. “As a matter of fact, I was just heading out. But I’m sure I’ll see more of you soon.” She winks, and then she strides toward the far doors, leaving me staring after her with my mouth open.

What the hell was that?

“Are you okay?” Jason asks, and I turn around to answer him. But he’s not talking to me. He’s bent over Angel with a hand on her shoulder, staring at her with what’s clearly deep, genuine concern.

Tears stand out in the girl’s eyes as she shakes her head, and he wraps his arm around her shoulders to lead her away, though not before he pauses to mouth over her head. Be right back.

But I don’t stick around to wait. Instead, I race back outside, after Mrs. Randall. She’s already halfway across the parking lot, walking quickly. But I hike up my skirt and chase after her, for once not caring what I must look like.

I reach her side just as she reaches her car. A car I recognize. I dart around to the front, and sure enough, there is the scrape along her front right bumper. Exactly where I knew it would be, because she hit me there when she ran me off the road. I plant both hands on her hood with a slam, stopping her in her tracks, her keys out and jangling in the door. We both freeze, eyes locked.

“You owe me an explanation,” I say, through gritted teeth.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” She opens her door.

“I’m not blind.” I gesture angrily at the scrapes on her car. “And what the hell was that in there? Who was that woman and why were you yelling at her? How do you know Dr. Robinson? I-I mean… Jason.”

Her smile widens, knowingly. I hate that. I hate the glimmer in her eyes, like she’s aware of something I’m not seeing here. “My dear,” she says, her voice a sympathetic purr that churns my stomach worse than anything else she’s said to me or anyone around me, all day. “Dr. Robinson—Jason, I should say—and I have been having a fling for quite some time. Surely you know, if you know him as… intimately as you seem to be implying, what he does on the side, don’t you?” Mrs. Randall’s eyebrows rise higher on her forehead, if possible. “Dating an escort isn’t for the faint of heart, my dear. If you’re going to get this jealous every time you run into me or another one of his clients, well…”

She waves a hand absently toward the hospital, and I wonder with a pang if she means the quiet girl, Angel, the one Jason went to comfort before he’d even say a word to me about anything that had just happened.

“Well then, I don’t know if you should continue getting involved in all this.” Mrs. Randall’s eyes sharpen, then, and she glances from me to her car and back again. “Is this why you’ve concocted this ridiculous fantasy about me trying to run you down? Do you think I would’ve done something like that out of jealousy, is that why?”

I pull back from her car, folding my arms over my chest. “Oh, hell, no. You aren’t going to twist this around on me. I’m calling the cops this time. I have proof now, you’re the one who hit me.”

“If you call the police, my dear, I’ll just have to inform them about your involvement with Dr. Robinson. I’m sure they’re much more eager to know who’s been writing his number on bathroom stalls all around the county, picking up clients in every which spot, than they are to chase up a report on a simple car accident.”

My fists ball at my sides. “Jason and I are just hooking up, like normal, consensual adults. I don’t pay him for anything. None of this is illegal.”

“Funny.” Mrs. Randall climbs into her car, ignoring me now. “I wonder if the police will see it that way. Heavens knows some money has been exchanged over this Angel.” With that, without explaining further what the hell she means, she slams her car door.

My heart thumps in my chest, loud enough to drown out the roaring rush of anger in my ears as she backs out of the spot and pulls away from me. I stare after her, still unable to believe what just happened. What was all that about? What does she mean, money being exchanged over Angel? What is going on?

My stomach sinks. I need to know. And I’m certainly not going to walk in there for a doctor’s appointment now, acting like everything is fine, until I know the truth. I take a deep, steadying breath, drinking in the fresh air of the parking lot. Then I stride toward my car. As I do, I pull my phone out of my pocket and dash off a new message to what has lately become the number I text and call most frequently.

We need to talk about what just happened in there, I write. I sit in my car, fists clenched around the steering wheel, trying to calm my clanging nerves, until my phone lights up with a reply.

Of course. Are you coming back in for your appointment?

I can’t. Not today. Meet me somewhere else when you can.

To his credit, he responds almost at once. The ice cream stand on Murray in 20 minutes work for you?

Sure, works for me. That gives me twenty minutes to steel myself. Twenty minutes to prepare for what I already am sure will be a bad revelation, no matter what it might turn out to be. My stomach churns as I switch on the car and drive out that way. Somehow, I already know twenty minutes isn’t enough time to get ready for this. But I also know, just as surely, that no amount of time would be.

13

I stare at the vanilla cone Jason bought for me, then over at his chocolate one. He’s halfway through eating his. I haven’t touched my own. “So…”

“So,” he agrees. “You met Angel.”

“Who is she?” I ask. I can’t help it. After all this time wondering, I need to know.

Still, nothing could have prepared me for his answer. “She’s my sister.”

I drop my ice cream into my lap and spring up, cursing. He hands me a stack of napkins. It takes me some time to wipe the worst of the cream off my skirt. When I finish, he hands me his own cone without a word. I take a few licks of the chocolatey goodness to calm my nerves before I slide onto the seat again. “Okay. So… you wrote your phone number up in a bathroom stall, asking people to call you for a good time, and then you wrote your sister’s name alongside it?”

He blows out a long, slow sigh. “Not exactly.” He runs a hand through his hair. “This is kind of a long story, Naomi. I hope you’re okay with that.”

“I’m all ears,” I tell him, and force myself to take another long lick of chocolate. It does help, somehow. The cold and the flavor both calm me.

“Angel, my sister, used to be a teacher. At the same preschool where Mrs. Randall works. In fact, who you just met.”

I purse my lips. “Oh, we didn’t just meet. I am more than familiar with her particular brand of unpleasantness.”

His smirk widens. “Good, that saves me some time.” We both laugh a little, but it’s weak. Then Jason shakes his head to carry on. “My sister used to… Well, she used to have another job, too. She made some, uh… racy videos. For extra cash, to put me through medical school. Our parents drank most of our college savings away, and then Dad died when we were in our teens, and Mom ran off with some new guy, so…”

“So it was just the two of you,” I supply, my chest easing a little as I remember what he said at my cousin’s party, his wry comments about family. “That must have been hard.”

“It was. Anyway, my sister thought she’d buried the videos, but one of the fathers of a student of hers uncovered them. He tried to blackmail her with the videos, threatened to go public with them unless she slept with him. She refused, so he sent the videos to everyone at their school. All the other teachers and parents. Well, that started a huge campaign, everyone protesting it wasn’t appropriate for someone like her to work with children. She got fired. But that wasn’t enough for him. He also went around town and started to write her name in bathroom stalls, along with her number.”

My eyebrows rise. What? But I keep my mouth shut tight and let Jason finish the story.

“Anyway, I tried to sue him, after all that happened, for defamation. But we lost in court. They said the video was real, and for all they knew the ba

throom graffiti could be too…” He shakes his head. “It took my sister years to recover. You saw her, she’s still pretty shy and jumpy around any new people. Or any old people involved in that whole mess, especially.”

I grimace. “I can’t blame her.”