read my expression, Gracie. We’re standing in the dark.”
There is a sharp clack as Gracie flicks the switch and the room explodes in light. I cover my eyes with my free hand.
“I was just trying to feel good,” she says. “I wanted to have a little fun. Just a little. Is that so awful?”
I am so tired the skin on my face hurts. When was the last time I felt good? Or had fun? “Why don’t you run out to the corner,” I say, “I’m sure there’s still a wino or two hanging around that you can bring home and fuck. That would be fun.”
Something in Gracie’s face flattens out and grows hard, like a frozen pond in the dead of winter. She hesitates, but then shoots back. “At least I’m not some kind of half-assed virgin who refuses to even attempt to experience life.”
There’s not much to say on either side after that.
We end this fight like we did when we were little girls, with a staring match. Editor Boy, one of Gracie’s boyfriends who actually hung around for a while, used to say that both Gracie and I were experts in giving silent deadly looks, but that our styles were different. Gracie’s look says that she knows more than you do, but she’ll keep her vast superiority to herself because to do otherwise would be rude. I, on the other hand, specialize in the fuck-off, if-looks-could-kill approach.
My sister and I stare each other down in the bright light of the kitchen. The window over the sink shows a black sky and not another soul awake or a bulb lit anywhere in Ramsey. We are alone in this room, in this house, in this new day. Blue and brown eyes locked.
You don’t know anything about anything.
Fuck you. You don’t know me.
I break first, because I have to leave for work. I have responsibilities. I dump the cold coffee in the sink, grab my bag, and slam out the back door without a word.
I SPEND most of my morning at the hospital looking to regain my rhythm. I go through the motions of being a cool, competent doctor-in-training. I phone in lab requests, swab up blood, hold back pieces of skin and tissue so the attending physician can look inside the patient and determine the extent of the damage. In the middle of the morning my attending has to step away, so he allows me to stitch up a minor arm wound without supervision. The patient, a balding, pudgy man who is on the verge of tears, asks for a local anesthetic.
“An injection of lidocaine will hurt more than the stitches,” I tell him. “Just let me sew the cut up quickly, and you’ll see that you don’t need the shot.”
“I don’t believe you.” This grown man is actually pouting. “I want the shot.”
“Fine. It’s your arm.” I pick up the syringe, making no attempt to keep it low and hidden the way the doctors tell you to. Let this jerk see exactly what he’s getting.
“Shit, you’re not going to just stab that thing into me, are you? Hold on now, maybe I want the real doctor to come back.”
Someone leans in behind me; there is a familiar, breathy voice in my ear. “Let me help, sir.” Pushy, perfect Belinda offers her toothy smile to the patient. “You shouldn’t let yourself get so anxious. There doesn’t need to be any pain.”
I wonder how Belinda’s hair can smell like strawberries during her eighteenth consecutive hour in the hospital. The man smiles back at Belinda. His eyes glaze over. He is apparently wooed by her smell and her dyed blond hair and her one-size-too-small white jacket. “Please,” he says. “I want her to do it. Not you.”
I shake my head and hand over the needle. Belinda has turned this moment into another battle in the long war between us, and I’m in no mood to fight. During the first two years of medical school I was consistently ranked number one in the class, while she was number two. She senses that the title is now up for grabs and moves in for the kill every chance she gets. I have to admire her tenacity.
“How’s your grandmother?” she asks over her shoulder.
“She’s fine,” I say, and leave the room. Of course, it was Belinda who had been sent to find me with the news that Gram was in the ER. I hadn’t believed her at first. I thought she’d taken a left turn