Radclyffe - Turn Back Time

"It was early. I knew we'd just wake up the whole house."

"Did you eat?"

"We went to the Melrose."

There was a moment of silence. "The Melrose. On a Saturday morning."

"Uh-huh."

"Something happen I should know about?"

"How do you do that?" Wynter closed her eyes and stroked her daughter's soft hair.

"Doctors, especially surgeons and anesthesiologists, are creatures of habit. You have very few and very predictable responses to stress.

Ken eats ice cream out of the carton by the gallon and forgets about sex.

You go to the Melrose and brood."

"Ken really forgets about sex?"

"Get Ronnie settled. I'm coming over."

Wynter was in the kitchen making tea when Mina arrived. She looked over her shoulder and said, "Do you want some toast?"

"I'm fine. So tell me what happened, and don't dance around."

"We went to the concert," Wynter said as she carried two mugs of tea to the table. "It was wild. I don't know if it was that place or the music or the fact that I haven't been out on a date in years, but I..." She stopped and stared at Mina. A date. "Well. I guess that answers your question from last night."

Mina sipped her tea and said nothing.

"I felt so good. A little bit crazy. She put her arms around me and every nerve in my body fired at once." She smiled, remembering how alive she'd felt. "I turned and kissed her. I couldn't seem to get enough of her." Her voice drifted off as she tried to recognize herself in that kiss and failed. Confused, she met Mina's warm, kind gaze. "I think I scared her. She left in a hurry, and I haven't talked to her since."

"Were you scared?"

"Scared." Wynter tried the word on for size, then shook her head.

"No. No, I wasn't. Or uneasy or embarrassed. I was just...nuts for her."

Mina drummed her fingers lightly on the tabletop, a slight frown of concentration breaking the smooth contours of her forehead. "It's funny, the things we don't know about our friends. I've known you, what? Going on eight years, maybe?"

Wynter nodded and pushed her tea aside. Her stomach had tied itself into a knot.

"Have you ever been with a woman before?" Mina asked.

"No," Wynter said softly.

"Ever wanted to?"

"If you'd asked me three months ago, I would have said no."

Wynter looked at Mina, but her gaze was unfocused as she searched the past. "I always had a lot of friends growing up. Our community was small and pretty tight. All the kids hung out together in one big social group all the way through high school, boys and girls both. We didn't pair off the way a lot of kids seem to do. I thought of boys as friends first, I guess, and boyfriends second. Naturally, I was closer to my girl friends."

"So you never had any indication that maybe you liked girls as more than friends?"

"No," Wynter said, but she sounded uncertain.

"What?"

"I told you about Match Day. I bumped into Pearce," Wynter smiled, "literally. She looked a little younger and tougher then. Still just as beautiful as she is now, though. I just kind of got lost in her." She looked at Mina and shook her head, unable to find the words to describe what she felt. "I just wanted to be with her. When she started to kiss me that day, I wanted that more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life. It made no sense, and I never even questioned it."

"What happened?"

Wynter snorted. "Dave called at the critical moment. And I suddenly realized that I was about to kiss a woman who happened to be a total stranger. I left her there, and I didn't see her again until a couple of months ago."

"But you thought about her."

"Yes."

"That way."

"Yes. Sometimes. For just a second, and then I'd brush it away."

Wynter sighed. "I was pregnant when I met her, Dave and I were ready to move to Yale and start our residencies, and I thought it was just a fluke. Just a moment of perfect insanity."

"Like last night."

Wynter shook her head. "No. Last night was a thousand times better."

Mina laughed. "Woo-ie, you are in a bad way."

"This is serious, Mina. Pearce was really upset. She walked out of the concert in the middle of the night, left her car, and went to the hospital."

"She's probably scared right down to the tips of those big black sexy boots of hers."

Wynter frowned. "Why?"

"Oh come on, sweetie. You're a divorced mother, straight as far as everyone including you can tell. She probably thinks you're just...

playing--you know, experimenting."

Wynter rose quickly and strode to the sink, dashing the now-tepid tea into the drain so forcefully it splashed out. "That's ridiculous. I would never do that."

"Well, she probably doesn't know that."

"Well, she should."

"Honey," Mina said, rising slowly, "you might have to do some explaining. Because I'll tell you one thing. She's got a serious case for you."

Her heart racing, Wynter asked softly, "You think?"

"I know. It's written all over that beautiful face of hers."

v As soon as Mina left, Wynter retrieved her phone from the bedroom, called the page operator, and asked for Pearce.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Rifkin has signed out for the day."

"Sorry, didn't I say Pearce Rifkin? She's on call for the chief's service," Wynter said, knowing Pearce's schedule as intimately as she knew her own.

"Just a moment."

Wynter tuned out the background chatter of the page operators, four women who occupied a glassed-in booth on the first floor opposite the admissions office. Most of them looked like they'd been with the hospital since the first brick was laid, and they knew every person on staff by name. She was certain they could tell stories that would top the New York Times Bestseller List for years.

"Dr. Rifkin is not on call today. Dr. Dzubrow is covering for Rifkin's service."

Wynter frowned. She was certain Pearce was scheduled to be in house today. "Can you page her to--"

"She left word that she would be off beeper for the entire day. Do you want to leave a message in case she calls in?"

"No," Wynter said slowly. "Thanks."

She closed her phone and stared at nothing, wondering what to do.

One thing was certain, she'd go crazy if she had to sit around all day wondering where Pearce was and what she was doing, and with whom.

She glanced at the leather coat she'd dropped over the rocker next to her bed, then idly scanned the dresser where her wallet and keys and...

Pearce's keys...lay jumbled together. She opened her phone again.

"Mina? I'm sorry. Do you think I can bring Ronnie over for an hour after she wakes up?"

"Chloe is coming by with her kids, so we might as well make it a party. Bring her by whenever."

Just after noon, Wynter walked down the narrow driveway toward the garage where Pearce kept her vehicles. Both doors were open, and somewhere in the cavernous space, Patti Smith wailed about the night.

Wynter unzipped her parka and removed it when she stepped inside.

The CD was so loud that Pearce couldn't have heard her coming even if she hadn't been almost entirely underneath the body of the Corvair. All that was visible were the bottoms of her blue jeans and the soles of her scuffed workboots. Wynter knelt down, contemplating how to announce herself without startling Pearce. As if sensing her presence, Pearce shifted one booted foot to the concrete floor and propelled the dolly on which she'd been lying out from underneath the car. Wordlessly, Pearce turned down the portable CD player by feel, then lay on her back on the wooden slab looking up at Wynter, who leaned over her from two feet away. A smudge of grease streaked Pearce's cheek just below her left eye, and there was a small scrape on her chin. She wore no jacket, only a stained gray T-shirt that had pulled free from her jeans.