“If any of you would like to talk over this situation, counseling is available. Please see myself, deputy station manager Deb Connors, or station morale officer Gerald Keene. Thank you for your attention. ”
The speaker snapped off once more, leaving the lounge in silence again. Anne looked around. This time, however, none of them had anything to say, and eventually they left the room, one by one.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cass composed herself, trying to keep her face blank, but the man’s fingers and thumbs were pressing deep into the flesh of her ankle and the back of her calf like he was trying to separate the layers of muscle and tissue into their individual strands. The skin from her lower leg to the top of her foot was already a multi-shaded purple-green around the joint and, while there wasn’t any single spot that hurt more than another, the whole thing was throbbing to a beat that made her suspended foot swing rhythmically in place.
“I’m glad I caught you when I did,” Dr. Ayres said mildly, kneeling at her feet like a suitor. Only a small hint of reproach colored his voice as he continued to roll and probe her bare ankle like it was a piece of meat. “If I hadn’t seen you limping down the stairs over by the greenhouse, you might’ve gone on to do some real damage here.”
Cass grimaced. After losing the mystery figure in the tunnel and finding the VMF empty, she’d gone back to work rescuing the stranded Alpine. The pain in her twisted ankle had grown, however, until she’d been forced to hobble up the Beer Can steps in search of the stash of Advil she kept in her berth. But one unlucky encounter in the hall later and she was in triage, getting her ankle wrapped and praying Ayres wouldn’t think her injury bad enough to find her a seat on the last flight of the season.
More lightly than she felt, Cass joked, “I figured I’d wait so you’d have more of a challenge.”
He gave her a small smile. “You’re the one with the challenge. I see some impressive runner’s calluses here. I bet you haven’t skipped a day in years. Except for that plantar fasciitis, I think I see here. What did you do then?”
“I switched to century rides. You can bike when you can’t run,” she said, then hissed as the doctor’s thumbs hit a spot that she didn’t think she’d had. Pain lanced from the sole of her foot to her heel. He held on gently as she pulled away.
“Take it easy. I’m all done. With the inspection, at least.”
He stood and rummaged around in a side cabinet. Ayres was a slender man in his fifties, sandy hair cropped close, but prematurely bald. Some people called him the Bartender because his mild manner and sympathetic ear had Shackleton staff coming to him as much for advice as twisted ankles. But Cass had also heard that Ayres had gotten his medical training in the Marines, and earned his stethoscope on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, and a half-dozen other hot spots around the world.
“What got you into running in the first place?” With his head buried in the cabinet, Ayres’s voice was muffled.
Escape? Distraction? Survival? “Just a fitness nut, I guess. I ran in high school and college.”
“Competitively?”
“In high school, yes. In college, no. Club. I wasn’t even close to making the team.”
“Sounds like my love life.”
Cass smiled. “Am I going to live, Doc?”
“I think so. You have a mid-level sprain. A Grade One that was probably eight degrees’ torque away from a Grade Two. Nice work, actually. It should take you, oh, a month to get your normal mobility back. A bit more than that before you can train for the Ironman, so take it easy in the gym.”
Cass swallowed. “So, I get to . . . stay?”
“Stay?” He smiled quizzically. “For Pete’s sake. Was that why you tried to slink away when I found you? Cass, you’d have to cut your foot clean off to get eighty-sixed this late in the season. You’re staying.”
“Oh, God.” A wave of relief washed over her. “Thank you.”
Ayres grunted and stepped back from the cabinet with two boxes of bright purple medical wrap. He pulled a stool over to the table where she sat, took his place back at her feet, and began gently winding the spongy fabric around her ankle, starting at the joint and working his way up to her calf, then back down to encompass half of her foot.
Biting her lip, Cass watched, expecting the pain to blossom and swell, but the rigidity and extra support actually reduced the consistent hammering down to a dull throb. Ayres’s hands were sure and gentle and he had her entire foot wrapped in a few minutes.
He handed her the other box of medical wrap. “Swap the wrap every few days. Try not to get it wet or they’ll smell you coming from down the hall. Not too tight or you’ll be back in here for gangrene. Stay off your feet—”
She snorted.