As a courtesy, Dr. McCormick gives Lucas and me the day off on Monday so we can recover from the quarantine. Apparently, Mr. Holder is doing well down in Houston and I’m glad, but I can’t seem to think of anything beyond what happened in that exam room. It’s eating away at me.
My mom gets suspicious because I don’t get excited about homemade chicken pot pie on Monday night. In fact, I barely eat any of it. I sit across from her at our dining table as she regales me with stories of her weekend without me and I only seem to catch every other word, like she’s talking through a bad cell connection. She knows something is off, and I think that’s why she calls Madeleine over. She’s the special forces unit.
She arrives when I’m back upstairs, standing at my bedroom window and staring at Lucas’ childhood room next door. With his curtains drawn, I can’t see much.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Madeleine declares, walking into my room with a bag in her hands.
From inside, she extracts a bottle of wine, chocolate, and sour gummy worms.
I don’t pick up on her ploy until I’ve made my choice and ripped open the bag of worms.
“Oh god. Something’s really wrong,” she says, shaky hand covering her mouth like I’ve just announced a terminal cancer diagnosis.
I toss the bag back on my bed and reach for the chocolate instead.
“It’s too late! You grabbed the worms! What the hell is going on?”
You see, Madeleine knows my tells: wine is for every day; chocolate is for your average, run-of-the-mill bad day; but gummy worms—those are for red alert, code black situations.
I don’t see a point in tiptoeing around the truth. My thoughts have been circling themselves all day. Her opinion might help.
“Lucas and I nearly had sex when we were in quarantine.”
After my sentence settles in my room, I think she has a mini stroke because her left eye starts to twitch and her mouth goes slack. I hold out a finger and tell her to follow my movements, but she shoves it away and grips my shoulders.
“What did you just say?” she asks, trying to shake sense into me.
“Lucas and I fooled around. Ow. Okay. Back off. Twice, actually. I think we would have had sex too if the CDC hadn’t been so punctual.”
“Ew!” She finally steps away and shakes away the images swirling around her head. Her hands cover her ears. “No. No. No. I don’t want to think about my brother doing that.”
“And you think I do?! We were practically forced into it!”
“What do you mean you were forced? Was that part of the CDC infection protocol? Boning your arch nemesis?”
“There was no way around it. What little air we had in there was thick enough to cut with a scalpel. The two of us just aren’t meant to be locked in like that—it could have just as easily ended with murder.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes. With that in mind, I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky. Honestly, Madeleine, it ruined every assumption I had about why he hasn’t been able to hold down a girlfriend all these years. The guy has skills.”
“STOP.”
“Sorry, you’re my only friend. You have to listen.”
“No. It’s not healthy.”
“Oh please. You were the one who wanted me to make nice with him! Well guess what, we made nice all right. We made nice all over that freaking exam room!”
Madeleine has fallen onto my bed and burrowed beneath my pillows to try to block out the sound of my voice. I continue anyway.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since they released us and I’ve decided it doesn’t change anything. I still hate him.”
“Of course.”
“Truthfully, the fact that he is skilled in that department pisses me off even more.”
“So what are you going to do when you see him at work tomorrow?”
“What do you think I’m going to do, Madeleine? Behave like the adult that I am. Since nothing has changed, I won’t change the way I conduct myself. Nothing has changed. One more time, say it with me: nothing has changed.”
“You don’t sound very confident.”
“Well by tomorrow morning, I will. Now pass me those gummy worms.”
When I stroll into Dr. McCormick’s office the next day, I am the picture of professionalism. I’m wearing my smartest black fitted pants and a cream silk blouse. My heels give me a few inches and my white coat has been freshly starched. I have brushed up on all the patients we will be seeing and I’ve confirmed there is ink in every one of my pens.
Lucas has done the same. His hair is somehow thicker than usual. More brown. Begging for my hands. His jaw is freshly shaved, and his glasses rest confidently on the bridge of his nose. He’s a Ken doll masquerading as a doctor and it bothers me that he probably wakes up like this.
“You’re avoiding me,” he says as I brush past him in the kitchen. My mug is steaming with freshly poured coffee.
I pat his shoulder. “Not any more than usual, Dr. Thatcher. You’re highly avoidable.”
He reaches out and catches my hand before I can scurry back to my office. “I like that top you have on. How far do you think the buttons will fly when I rip if off?”